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Castle Vale

  • Thread starter Thread starter harley
  • Start date Start date
I've had quite a bit to do with the 'Vale one way or another. I remember seeing it being built in the 60's. I worked on the Railway lines (based at Castle Bromwich 'Old' Station, now demolished and under the widened Chester Rd), we used to reach the track by driving over the rubbish strew Airport runways that BCC were covering up prior to remodelling. Through the 70's. I used to go to a Monday night 'DJ instead of a jukebox' session in the Albatross, and went out with a few girls off the estate. I still see many of my friends off the Vale.
Now ... as to its state, as a Police Officer in the late 70's until the late 80's, I often ended up on the Vale from Warwickshire, as the Vale became the haunt of serial car thieves, this ruined the place for many who had moved in out of poor housing stock in B'ham. Within a few years, it had become very run down. I joined the Ambulance Service in the late 80's and, once more worked on & around the Vale. It was awful. You daren't park under the Tower blocks as sharpened pieces of concrete reinforcing rods would be dropped on your vehicle. There was a serious Drugs problem, and violence was rife, esp against the elderly.
When the HAT took over, they worked a miracle. The place now is a lot better than it ever was.

There is a very good book out that traces the history of the area in pictures, from its time as a sewage farm up to the present day.
 
I lived on the Castle Vale for 8yrs and a barmaid at the trees in the 1980s..i live in Erdington now..not far away
Sheila
 
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I think Castle Vale has been much derided over the years, mainly by folks who knew only of it by reputation, having lived there between 1967-1996, let me give a positive spin. Most folks who ended up there mid to late sixties did so due to the process of inner city slum clearance, so the environment they came from in housing terms (but not necessarily sense of the community) was probably worse than the new urban sprawl, but this sprawl was located (on three sides) by open countryside and unlike the inner city, a kid could jump on their bicycle and within 5 minutes be in the middle of nowhere. Likewise within the boarders of the square mile of the Vale it's self, green open space was at premium, if folks could see past the concrete, in terms of position within the natural environment, folks could have been considered lucky.
For all the changes made to the housing stock by the HAT, when I drive through the vale now, o.k the towers have gone, but so has all the green space, swallowed by the new housing, the Park Lane fields just across the railway are now an industrial complex, meaning that a once little oasis of urban jungle, is now a faceless residential sprawl, yes even with rose coloured specs, one cannot deny the social problems 5000 people crammed into one high density square mile could create, but it was good to look outwards, not inwards.
 
We lived on castle vale 1974 - 2002 in st athans croft 2 years then yatesbury avenue opposite the residents club loved every minute on there,really miss the place still have friends on there, left because of work move.
 
SNOWY ? ... There was a young lad who was a ? Milkman ? off the Vale ... is that you? If so, how does the name Knoxy McKay sound to you?

Pete R ... (750 Norton - The Albatross, Monday nights with Maggie McKay).
 
Hi pete, sorry mate my names Brian and iam a plumber my local was the residents club and the lancaster before it became sainsburys regards Brian
 
My brother and sister in law lived in Castle Vale when it was first built. They lived in Stornoway Road for a long time. My step mother lived in a flat on Yatesbury Avenue at the same time, I think it was Kemble Tower, possibly no longer there.
I remember the school which was called Pegasus too.
 
Good Morning maggs, what was your brothers surname?, I lived in two properties on Castle Vale between 1967 and 1996, both off Stornoway Road. Kemble Tower and the rest of the centre eight have long gone, as a result of the Housing Action Trusts referb, an organisation that cost us personally a lot of money and grief, but that is another story.
 
i wonder if anyone remembers the harris family...used to have a mate named chad harris late 60s early 70s..i can see the house and the road/grove or street but just at the min i cant recall the name of it...

lyn
 
hi valeboy...i cant be sure but heyford way is not ringing any bells...sure it was only a short name though..maybe 6 letters to it so that dont really help lol..think chad was into the bike scene..im sure it will come to me but it was a long time ago..i can recall getting the no 8 from nursery road then i think it was the 67 from aston cross???

lyn
 
valeboy my brain has just kicked in... i think it was something like watton grove ??

lyn
 
Hi lyn, there were at least two brothers at this address, Michael and David, I think their father ran the estates Boxing Club.
 
valeboy said:
Haa, You mean Watton Green, let me think again.
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yes valeboy im sure that was it..casting my mind back all those years is not easy but im sure that was it as you came into the vale i think it was on the right hand side...i was only about 17 at the time..thinking back i wonder if chad was short for something else.. poss had one sister with a baby...couple of times a few of us would go to a pub on the vale again my memory fails on the name of it at the min but i do recall drugs being sold there which of course was a thing of the times then as it is now unfortunately...

lyn
 
sandracoley, you must have been the first owner in 1968, we lived there on the top floor in 1986, although only three stories tall, we had a good view of the city center of a night from the front, and during the day a lovely view from the rear, of the countryside towards Wishaw.
 
yes valeboy we were the first to move in ...the people who lived in the top right hand side flat were called dot and george the bottom right hand flat a woman called barbara and her family lived there she had twins .i cant remember the others names .i saw a tiny little boy knocked down and killed by a lorry on park lane was horrendous .ill never forget his mothers screams.we sold our flat around 1962 as i was expecting my 3rd child and needed a bigger place .a friend of mines husband fell from the high storey flats while painting the outside. he worked for the council and the chain on the cradle snapped and he fell to the ground and died instantly .i used to love the single decker bus that ran to sutton coldfield .im sure there have been lots of changes since i left castlevale .i have good and bad memories of the vale
 
I think the guy on the middle floor was called Ralph, I remember I knocked down the wall between the toilet and bathroom, with the bottom baton removed, you could see between the concrete floor slabs into his bathroom, I wasted no time in making good the gap. Lol.
 
Hi, I lived on Castle Vale between 1988 and 93 in one of the 'centre 8'; Cosford Tower. Like most other people, I have good and bad memories of the Vale- 99% of the people I remember were just ordinary people trying to get by, but the other 1% really seemed to make themselves a nighmare to live near. I remember putting 3 locks on the front door and reinforcing the frame with steel to prevent burglary- many of the people in the block had been burgled at one time or another.
I also remember Birmingham Cable (before it became Virgin Media) installing cable TV to the flats...a dish on the roof of the block complete with amplifiers in a 'locked' cupboard in the main entrance. Needles to say, we didn't have cable TV for very long!!!
But apart from that, I had a whale of a time on the Vale and made some good friends when I was there. Many evenings would be spent in neighbours' flats and beer and bottles of wine... you get the picture. I remember the Artful Dodger was a really popular pub, although to be honest, I never went in.
It all looks so different now. The old shopping centre became really run down before I left. I remember asking if there were any vacancies in the old Kwik Save, and being told the the only one available was as a security guard...I wanted to keep my teeth so I didn't go for it!
I also remember the kerfuffle when the HAT took over... and when we were asked to vote, a Birmingham housing inspector saying that it would be the best thing if the HAT took over the Vale...and looking at it today, it looks as though he was right!
 
chrisange said:
I lived on the vale in the early 70's, Meteor House, Filton Croft. I worked at the Trees Pub just down from our block. it was also my schools playing field before they built the estate.
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I lived in Filton Croft around the mid to late seventys, even had the odd pint in the Trees !
 
Just done my sums, I reckon I lived on the Vale with my parents from around 77-78, I left in 1982. It was pretty rough around that time and I probably didn't help my own cause much by continuing to go to Hodge Hill Comp. I remember getting home in my Hodge Hill Uniform was a bit like running the Gauntlet on Gladiators at the time ! Trees became my local from about 80 to 82, and then I became legal and it opened up a whole new world of pubs. Used to go the Navi at Minworth and there was a pub just over the road up a dead end that backed on to the canal which i cant recall the name of !
 
Pewster said:
Just done my sums, I reckon I lived on the Vale with my parents from around 77-78, I left in 1982. It was pretty rough around that time and I probably didn't help my own cause much by continuing to go to Hodge Hill Comp. I remember getting home in my Hodge Hill Uniform was a bit like running the Gauntlet on Gladiators at the time ! Trees became my local from about 80 to 82, and then I became legal and it opened up a whole new world of pubs. Used to go the Navi at Minworth and there was a pub just over the road up a dead end that backed on to the canal which i cant recall the name of !
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Pewter two pubs in Minworth, the Hare and Hounds, and the The Boat to be found up the dead end, which used to be the main road
 
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