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Castle Vale

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dippy101

New Member
Hey All! I moved to Castle Vale approximately 2 years ago after living in Nechells for a while and I am trying to get as much information as possible about the place. Old pictures, memories of the pubs that used to be round here, what you think of the place now and so on. I know somebody posted before asking about the place and got a "put it in the search bar" answer (which i did and couldnt find anything really!) Im especially interested in hermes tower (now innsworth green) and as much detailed information as you can pass on please!
 
Hi Dippy

I have a few pictures of the early version of Castle Vale but I know very little of the place itself other than the fact that they moved a lot of our neighbours out that way when they demolished Nechells but we resisted and just moved to a better house in Nechells. I did work on the estate for a while in the 60's when they were finishing it off, but that was on the houses near the top of the estate near Kingsbury rd. We did later in the early 70's use the tip at the top of Farnborogh Rd by the old hangars.

Phil

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Hi Phil.

thankyou for the photos they are brilliant, just the sort of thing I am after. I know the housing estate as was is a bit of a dark patch and apart from a book (no longer notorious) i have found very little. I remember my parents telling me that they moved from Cromwell Street in Nechells to Castle Vale and they lived in Hermes tower which is why it holds some fascination for me. In a weird twist of fate i met my girlfriend who lived in a flat her grandparents bought on Cromwel Street (right next to the school) and we also moved to castle vale!

Right now I am living at the Kingsbury Road end of Castle Vale and i had no idea where the old hangars were located or that there was a tip there. thank you for the information :)
 
Hi Dippy

I'm sure that you realise that Castle Vale estate was built on Castle Bromwich Aerodrome that was used by the Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory during the last war. A search on this site will produce much information on this fact.

The hangers to which I refer would have been the last remaining vestiges of the aerodrome and would have been on the opposite site of the estate to where you now live.

Phil

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Hi Phil

I have done a fair bit of research into the old estate and what it was before and it certainly has had a multi use past! I have clicked on google earth and they have a "back in time" feature which allows you to see it in 1945 on an aerial view. I was just wondering about the hangars because i thought everything like that would have been demolished when the estate was built. That must be the site of the new nature reserve.

Darren
 
dippy101 said:
Hi Phil

I have done a fair bit of research into the old estate and what it was before and it certainly has had a multi use past! I have clicked on google earth and they have a "back in time" feature which allows you to see it in 1945 on an aerial view. I was just wondering about the hangars because i thought everything like that would have been demolished when the estate was built. That must be the site of the new nature reserve.

Darren
Click to expand...

The hangers was where the betterware building is now. My wife works there and she says there some older parts to the building. Makes me think they built around the hangers
 
Frothblower said:
The hangers was where the betterware building is now. My wife works there and she says there some older parts to the building. Makes me think they built around the hangers
Click to expand...

Frothy

I think you are possibly right, all I remember is we used to drive up Farnborogh Rd and where the road started to veer off to the left we used to drive down a hard core track to the tip. I know they only accepted non degradable loads (brick, concrete & soil) so they must have been doing some infilling, but I can't remember what.

Phil
 
I have had a quick look around, ask of the neighbours and rode my pushbike over there earlier on and it turns out there is some remnance of the hangars left down the very far end of the estate, by the nature reserve which leads off farnborough road. Also i have been told of a cycle path right next to a small brook that leads to an old factory platform used during the war/ industry fair years so i shall have a look and take some pictures tomorrow.

I must say that i take great interest in local history. I am 26 and i know about the estate now but i want to know about its past because i hear all these horror stories and looking out of my window now i cannot imagine it.
 
The Hangars to which you all refer remained after the housing estate was built because they were not sold off with the rest of the airfield. The airfield was, as we all know "RAF" but the hangars that remained belonged to the Royal Navy. Known as RNAY (Royal Naval Aircraft Yard) Castle Bromwich. This could be clearly seen written on the Farnborough Rd side of the hangars. They were still in use in the very early 60's but when they closed the navy was very reluctant to sell them off but soon realised that they could never be used again and eventually got rid of them. Their original use was for conversion of the spitfire to the naval variant, the seafire and afterwards for maintenance of the aircraft.
 
Here's a bit of first hand knowledge. The Hangars were off Park Lane, on the 's' bends, opposite the Milk Float Depot, (both long gone I'm afraid), there are numerous photos and maps to show you where they were. The Alec Henshaw Book, "Sigh for a Merlin" is invaluable here. About 10 years ago a pit was excavated on this site and tons of Merlin Engines & spares, wrapped in greased hessian & crated were dug out from where they'd been buried after WW II. They are now at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight HQ in Lincoln.
There is a very good book of Photos detailing the area, showing the Sewage Farm that was Castle Vale. Essentially a Farmhouse stood just below the Tyburn House PH. The fields up to the Railway were used to spread ther 'Night Soil' from that side of the City.
By the time I became aware of Castle Vale in the late 60's it was being built. I started working on the Railway atr the old Castle Bromwich Stn in the early 70's. Many of my workmates lived on the Vale, and I drank in the ALbatross PH, (now gone). We had to drive across the Council Rubbish tip, (now Football fields and the Baths), to get to the Railway lines. The old Airfield layout was still recognisable then, with many buildings locally still camouflaged.
It was a new estate with, essentially, young families. However it soon developed problems with Teenagers stealing cars in the 1978 - 1986 period. Indeed there was a 'League Table' of who could nick what in the area! One major thief had a string of Garages in Watton Green, linked to a radio controlled door opener in order to evade Police pursuits. (I was working for Wartwickshire Police 1978 onwards). West Midlands Police mounted several major operations to catch the thieves and eradicate the problem. Linked to this, the Tower blocks were becoming infesated with the worst of B'hams scummy families. In 1988 I started working as a 'Paramedic' with the WM Ambulance Service. You NEVER parked a vehicle beneath the Towers, if you did you got sharpened spikes or teles through the roof! The lifts - you had to stand in the middle and ignore the human faeces! The whole place was a mess. The HAT was the best thing that happewned to the site. Many of the problem buildings have now gone, and, despite the garish colour scheme, it's a far better place. I still have friends there, long time residents, from the 60's, and they say so too.
 
I have reinstated my photos on this thread as best I am able, but I'm not even sure they are the same photos. I hope it doesn't distract from the enjoyment of the thread.

Phil
 
I moved to 25 Neville Walk in the 60's. The place was a sea of mud. There was no bus service so everyone had a bit of a walk from the no. 28 bus stop at the entrance of the estate.
A single decker bus ran as soon as the main roads onto the estate were cleared and finished off. My family moved from Hearnfield Rd Shard End. Why on earth my parents decided to move to Castle Vale I will never know.
It was mid 60's and the Beatles were at the top, so was flower power. I had very long hair (I'm male and 64 now) which my old man dissapproved of. He went ballastic when I refused to get it cut. Hey! wish I still had it to get cut!!
There was a bloke the same age as I was and he lived across the roadway. There were a block of garages there at the time and his house was just behind them but he could see over them and into my bedroom window. Years later he admitted
that he thought I was a girl and that was why he was looking. Cheeky sod! All these years later me and Colin Palmer are still really good friends- my oldest friend in fact.

He took me to the Top Rank in Dale End and it was there that I met my future first wife. Its facinating how your life is guided by who you meet. Fate and destiny. Think back yourself and see just how your own life has been steered by who you have met. in your past.

Any road up, (as my grandmother used to say) back to Castle Vale days; At the time it was exciting to watch all the people moving in. I was 18 and like my friend Colin, we were on the lookout for any fresh Totty that we could get to know.

We used to walk to the Tyburn Pub or nip into the Skylark just round the corner. Very handy. I remember clearly going in there on the first day of decimalization and ordering a pint of Brew (I still drink it) It cost 13p!
When I married I moved to Solihull where I worked. I now live in Moseley. I have just had a look at the Vale on Google Street view and all I can say (and Im sorry) what dump its become. At least in the early days people were new to the place. It was a new beginning for us all in a way. Eventually the bad apples move in and make themselves known by spreading their rot amongst everyone else. For years the useless council had this notion that you could dilute the bad apples with the good. What rubbish. The bad apples should always be left to rot together in a big barrel of slime.

They were good times then.
 
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In the early eighties I bought a house at the front of Castle Vale. The address was RAF Dwellings, as the houses I am told were for officers of the RAF in past times. Nice big and spacious, but we moved after about 18 months, The 80's were bad times, crime was rife. I remember walking past burned out cars on the way to work. Some poor lad was stabbed to death in the block of flats just next to us, so I thought enough is enough. Nice to see it is a different place these days.
 
Around 1962/63 our school (Cherrywood in Bordesley Green) used Castle Vale as our sports field. We went by bus and went in from Chester Road. We used to get changed in old huts.
 
As most of the roads on the Vale had aircraft connections i lived in Albert Shaw House ..14th floor..in the early 70`s can anyone tell me what connection Albert Shaw had with the Vale
 
I lived in Stornoway Road (millionares row as it was known on the vale) and didn't see much trouble basically 1985-90, and there again where does Stornoway come into the equation.
 
I shall have to pass on Albert Shaw but Stornoway was an RAF base during WW2. Now a civil airport.
 
dippy101 said:
I have had a quick look around, ask of the neighbours and rode my pushbike over there earlier on and it turns out there is some remnance of the hangars left down the very far end of the estate, by the nature reserve which leads off farnborough road. Also i have been told of a cycle path right next to a small brook that leads to an old factory platform used during the war/ industry fair years so i shall have a look and take some pictures tomorrow.

I must say that i take great interest in local history. I am 26 and i know about the estate now but i want to know about its past because i hear all these horror stories and looking out of my window now i cannot imagine it.
Click to expand...

Im 33, grew up on the parkfields and we NEVER! went near the vale ever. everytime we went passed it something happened from being chased by gangs to being mugged, one of the few area's of Birmingham I truly loathe.
 
I've just had a look at the 1980 utube clip. What a load of bolloney! Pity they didn't just show the stinking stair-wells and the stolen cars and the people generally that lived there at the time.(and probably still do).
The planners can design to their hearts content but you cannot design the low-life that move in.
 
The old name for Castle Vale was Berwood. The moat and Berwood Hall, stood until the 1930s. In its time Berwood has belonged to the Arden family, who gave it to the abbey of St. Mary de Pratis in 1160. After receiving the gift of land, the abbey decided to charge the Arden family, who still lived on the land rent. During the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, Thomas Arden bought back the land from Henry VIII. After Edward Arden was hanged for treason, the Crown confiscated the land and gave it to Edward Darcy. When Darcy heard of a court case brought by the son of Edward Arden to reclaim half of Berwood, Darcy deforested the area, leaving a swampy land unfit for farming. In 1881, the Bagot family, who owned Berwood, as well as Pype Hayes and who lived at Pype Hayes Hall sold much of the land to the Birmingham Tame and Rea Drainage Board, which used the land to spread the sewage of Birmingham. That might explain why my roses grow so well. By 1909, Berwood had become the Berwood Playing fields, and it was in that year that a local mechanic assembled a flying machine in the fields and flew it at a height of 50 ft, making it the first ever flight in Birmingham, and beginning Berwood's use as an aerodrome.
 
dippy101 said:
Hi Phil.

thankyou for the photos they are brilliant, just the sort of thing I am after. I know the housing estate as was is a bit of a dark patch and apart from a book (no longer notorious) i have found very little. I remember my parents telling me that they moved from Cromwell Street in Nechells to Castle Vale and they lived in Hermes tower which is why it holds some fascination for me. In a weird twist of fate i met my girlfriend who lived in a flat her grandparents bought on Cromwel Street (right next to the school) and we also moved to castle vale!

Right now I am living at the Kingsbury Road end of Castle Vale and i had no idea where the old hangars were located or that there was a tip there. thank you for the information :)
Click to expand...
Hi Guy's if anyone has any photo's they would like to share of either Cromwell st or the albatross in castle vale I would be very grateful. My father now 84 lived in cromwell st Nechells for a while with his gran at #98. Later we ended up at Castle vale on Tangmere drive, dad used to drink at the Albatross, hence the photos.
Gary Hurst
 
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