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Gosta Green Through Duddeston

Hi richie, thanks for your reply,
you are right with your anser,
i believe the road in the centre of phils picture 1098 is viewed
from weaman st looking towards upper priory, old sq , lower
priory , to dale end,
if so ! Where perry pens in the picture ? Terry ward
 
Terry

That is the picture to which I was referring. If you look at the photo about two thirds of the way up, almost central there is a dark building with a steeple like structure to the right end.

That I believe is Perry & Co Pens, confirmed by sospiri because myself I don't have a clue.

Phil
 
Terry:

Just to recap, I believe that the darkish building in the centre of Phil's picture (#1098) is the same building that I remember as being Perry Pens and is as per the box illustration in my posting #1072.

Regards,

Maurice
 
Hi again phil,
perry pens site was in lancaster st ( front of building )
to the left side was lawson st & to the right side was
brick kiln st
at the rear of building was part staniforth st part corperation st,
if you came to town from new town row perry pens was on the
left side . The site is now county council offices & was
halfords old site befor they moved to reditch.
Your pic ( 1098) i believe is the old sq area & a great picture,
taken at the right time. If any one knows better i would love to know
thanks , terry ward
 
Hi maurice,
the dark buildings in pic 1098 are i believe in corperation st in the old sq area & are part of the casino dance hall the old market hall with the bingo hall on the corner , i could be wrong ! Can any one else help ? Please terry ward
 
Here's some pics of a box of Perry's lino cutters in the possession of my cousin in Norfolk. I presume he got them from one of my uncles that worked for Perrys.
 

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Terry

I have been studying the photo in post #1098. along with a few pictures I have of Old Square. I think you may be right, perhaps Maurice can have another look. If he has second thoughts I will continue looking for a photo that is indeed of Perry & Co Pens. I'm attaching one photo of old square for comparison.

I tell you what is giving me pause for thought, and that is the white building in the foreground if it is indeed Old Square, and by this time Priory Circus. Then that is the building where we removed all the large heavy coping stones around the roof of the building in the 80's because they were becoming dangerous. It was quite a dangerous and labour intensive job. Looking at it I find it a distinct possibility

Phil
 

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Hi phil,
thanks for your reply , & a great picture , i hope you have many more, the white building is on the corner of steelhouse lane & upper priory, its on the site where billiards room were,
the entrance was in steelhouse lane facing the pub on the corner of weaman st, it was all changing at the time of your
picture, the rear site of perry pens was facing the king edward pub on the corner of staniforth st /corperation st,
it was also called the ben johnson pub. Terry ward
 
Phil:

I can't say that Terry is right about that being the Old Square as I don't know what that triangular newish building is in front of it, or even much remember what surrounded the Old Square. At first I thought the new building was on that triangular Halford site, but even if it was, it would put the supposed Perry building in the wrong place. The more I think about, the more I'm disinclined to think that is Perry's building.

Regards,

Maurice
 
Maurice

Its that white building that makes me think Terry is right. In the late 50's or early 60's they remodeled that side of Old Square right round from The Queens Head in Steelhouse Lane, all the way round to Corporation St nearly to Newton St.

I don't remember all the shops but I do remember there was a major branch of Lloyd's bank there that later became the computer hub for Lloyd's in Birmingham. I remember this because working on the roof with jack hammers they got us shut down every five minutes because of the noise.

Phil
 
Phil:

It must have been the early 1960s. I left Brum in January 1961 and I didn't come with a hundred miles of the place for more than a decade. When I left they had just got Smallbrook underway and were diverting traffic all over the place and I'm pretty sure they hadn't started on any of the other locations around the centre at that point. When I came back it was a case of "Where the hell am I?" ;-)

Maurice
 
Morning Maurice,
The Grand Casino was a very popular dance hall.
I used to work in Stafford St. in the early fifties as a signwriter, and we used to do the posters and signs for it, the managers name there at the time was Albert Archer.
I remember taking some signs up there once and bumping into Ray Ellington as he came out.
Just to the left of the Casino was the office block for the Evening Despatch, and a bit more to the left was Wimbushes where I used to go for a lunchtime sandwich and one of the best cream buns ever.
The light patch to the right of the casino was the entrance to the Kings Hall market, a few machines and if I remember right some stalls upstairs on like a balcony area.
Regards John.
 
Thanks for the info, John. I was a part-time musician and knew a lot of the guys in Sonny Rose's band at the West End, but "Grand Casino" just does not ring a bell at all!

Maurice
 
Perhaps this puts it into a better pespective.
Casino in yellow, Kings Hall in pink, clock is the despatch buildings and then wimbushes and then James Watt St.
regards.
 
Here is a better photo taken in 1961 which is about the same time as the disputed photo, I think everybody is more or less agreed now the the original photo is indeed not the building that Maurice is looking for. At least it has raised the awareness of his search a little, we may now get a better result.

Phil
 

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Thanks, John. I well remember Lewis', of course, but I think that was as far as I usually used to wander on foot down Corporation Street - never went slumming it! :-)

I remember Perrys from the fact that my father worked there until he died in the 1950s and I used to travel past it when going to visit my grandmother in Bartons Bank, Aston. But I think the trams used to go via Steelhouse Lane past the Gaumont.

If nothing else, this thread has turn up a few pictures!

Maurice
 
Hi John

I know I'm going way off message here but are you the John Knight who had a shop in Stoney Lane by Thompsons Glass.

Steerboy.
 
sospiri said:
Thanks, John. I well remember Lewis', of course, but I think that was as far as I usually used to wander on foot down Corporation Street - never went slumming it! :-)

I remember Perrys from the fact that my father worked there until he died in the 1950s and I used to travel past it when going to visit my grandmother in Bartons Bank, Aston. But I think the trams used to go via Steelhouse Lane past the Gaumont.

If nothing else, this thread has turn up a few pictures!

Maurice
Click to expand...

According to Robert Darlaston on his family website (www.robertdarlaston.co.uk) tram route 48 used to terminus at the Gaumont. There is a massive picture of a said tram outside the said picture house in the "trams" section (see the left hand list) The photo is that big it may take hours to reveal itself. If you can work out what was showing at the time at the Gaumont I/we can work out the date of the picture.

Mark Norton has a ground floor view of the Grand Casino and Kings Hall on his website (www.photobydjnorton.com) Its in the Birmingham City Centre section-as is the Gaumont!-under the Priory/Old Square section. I may be able during the coming weeks to find some specialist film vault photos of the Gaumont and its environs, possibly of the same period.
 
that is an amazing website - thank you :) me and my partner have just spent half an hour (at least :o) looking through those photos
 
To get back on thread, here is a photo of Northumberland Street off Vauxhall Rd as never saw it. I remember it as having blocks of maisonettes all down the one side, that led through to Vauxhall Grove and St Vincents School. I think the other side was the Co op Dairy.

I think the back terrace that can be seen opposite side of Vauxhall Rd at the end of the road is the one that Astoness posted a photo of, and the one Mikejee found the name of, New Terrace,

Phil
 

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Great picture PMC, seems to tie in with the map. Would be great to see the older houses in Vauxhall Grove...next street over...if you come across a photo. The houses there seem to have had long gardens in front and were there before and after the 1900 development. Just wondered what they looked like...free standing and maybe nicer.
 
sorry if this has been posted before..... a delightful pic of gosta green c 1925...taken from the upstairs window of a tabacconists before the delicia cinema was constructed...

astoness


Gosta Green (3).jpg

courtesy of carl chinns birmingham lives..
 
If you look at the pen box picture on post #1072. there appears to be a canal pretty much siding on to the factory/ Surely this could never have been the case at the Lancaster Street/Brick Kiln location. Are we looking at the same place I wonder.
 
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