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Harborne

  • Thread starter Thread starter mike-g
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No I didn't know that either but I have heard that the Huntsman (was the Kings Arms) is falling apart !!. So where are people having their pints these days ?
KINS
 
KINS said:
No I didn't know that either but I have heard that the Huntsman (was the Kings Arms) is falling apart !!. So where are people having their pints these days ?
KINS
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Ah that was a whole load of fuss! The Kings Arms had been derelict for a number of years news owner bought it, and did it up as the huntsman. It then suffered a fire about a year ago and lost most of the roof. The gutted remains of the roof were then knocked down by the wind into the High Street a few months ago!
 
We also lost the Scarlet Pimpernel a few years ago but don't worry there are still plenty of pubs in or just off the High Street.
 
DavidGrain said:
We also lost the Scarlet Pimpernel a few years ago but don't worry there are still plenty of pubs in or just off the High Street.
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I forgot about that one. That leaves us with the Sportsman, the Green man, the Plough, Harborne Stores, the Proverbial, the Junction and the White horse.
.
 
Hello again - you certainly have a lot of pubs. Is the Bell Inn still in existence with its bowling green ? I used to live near there many years ago and had a friend who lived at the old vicarage next door when the Rev Harvey Clark was vicar. I believe the Bishops' Croft House is still in use? It was a fairly regular occurrence to see a horse running loose from the field around the big house, one of which was a horse belonging to Mr. Grafton (Graffi) who owned the pet shop at the end of Albert Walk. No doubt all that has changed too. KINS
 
KINS said:
Hello again - you certainly have a lot of pubs. Is the Bell Inn still in existence with its bowling green ? I used to live near there many years ago and had a friend who lived at the old vicarage next door when the Rev Harvey Clark was vicar. I believe the Bishops' Croft House is still in use? It was a fairly regular occurrence to see a horse running loose from the field around the big house, one of which was a horse belonging to Mr. Grafton (Graffi) who owned the pet shop at the end of Albert Walk. No doubt all that has changed too. KINS
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Funny you should say that, I forgot about the Bell! Bishop's croft and Harborne Hall are still in use (the hall providing temp accommodation last year for Harborne primary), as is the Bell Inn. It's still a nice part of Harborne with St Peter's and the other old buildings but I don't go there often. The horses have gone from there, but they are still kept round the back of Knightlow Road.
 
Wonderful material about W. H. Auden in Harborne! The Auden family moved to Birmingham from York in 1907 (or maybe 1908) just after little Wystan Hugh was born. His family still lived in Birmingham when he left for the US in 1939. I'm interested in the early schooling of W. H. Auden. He was sent off to preparatory school (an older bother already at St Edmund's School, Hindhead, Surrey) in 1915, where he stayed until he went to Gresham's School Norfolk, in 1920. But I'm interested in his very early education, before he went to borading school. Who taught him to read? Mrs Auden doesn't sound like the kind of mother who had the time. There is no mention of governesses, tutors, little local schools--nothing--in any of the biographies of Auden. Can any one help?--with education in Harborne (I guess we assume private education) in the years before the First World War? I can explain why I'm interested if anyone wants to know. It would just take rather a long time here! Carolyn
 
Yes the Auden family lived at No 42 Lordswood Avenue, from about 1920 according to the electoral rolls. In 1911 they (George Augustus Auden MD, Medical Superintendent to Birmingham Corporation Education dept., his wife Constance Rosalie nee Bicknell [married 1899], and sons John Bicknell and Wystan Hugh, were resident at "Apsley", Lode Lane, Solihull.
 
In a quote from https://mikeinmono.blogspot.co.uk/ , there is mention of the Pinsent family: "In November 1911, Ellen Pinsent became the first woman to be elected to Birmingham City Council, standing in the Edgbaston ward. She stood down from the post two years later when Hume retired, prompting the Pinsents to move to Oxfordshire. During her time on Birmingham Council Ellen Pinsent led the Committee on Special Schools. Amongst her reforms was to appoint an officer to oversee Public Health in these schools. The officer appointed was George Auden, father of poet W.H. Auden."
 
Thank you! So you think that the Auden family first lived in Solihull before they moved to Harborne? Still wondering where little Wystan went to school--if he went to school. Any ideas about little private schools in Harborne and Solihull? And I suppose I could look at the electoral register to see if there were a resident tutor or governess in 1911. The Auden's certainly kept servants (or at least one servant) and they should show up too.

Thank you for your interest.

Carolyn

Lloyd said:
Yes the Auden family lived at No 42 Lordswood Avenue, from about 1920 according to the electoral rolls. In 1911 they (George Augustus Auden MD, Medical Superintendent to Birmingham Corporation Education dept., his wife Constance Rosalie nee Bicknell [married 1899], and sons John Bicknell and Wystan Hugh, were resident at "Apsley", Lode Lane, Solihull.
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1911 was before female suffrage was introduced, so any female tutor would not be included
 
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C.K.Steedman said:
I suppose I could look at the electoral register to see if there were a resident tutor or governess in 1911. The Auden's certainly kept servants (or at least one servant) and they should show up too.
Thank you for your interest. Carolyn
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The 1911 census gives Ada Elizabeth Lowly, age 31 from West Hartlepool, as a cook; Flora Munday, age 17 from Rudge, Staffordshire as a Housemaid; and Emma Lucy Heiniger, age 20 from Columbia, South America but of Swiss nationality (!) as a Governess.
 
Thank you! This is Apsley House, Lode Lane, Solihull, is it? Where they lived until 1913, when they moved to 13 Homer Road, Solihull? They Audens moved to Harborne in 1919. Thank you so much for looking. Emma Heiniger sounds particularly interesting ... . Carolyn

Lloyd said:
The 1911 census gives Ada Elizabeth Lowly, age 31 from West Hartlepool, as a cook; Flora Munday, age 17 from Rudge, Staffordshire as a Housemaid; and Emma Lucy Heiniger, age 20 from Columbia, South America but of Swiss nationality (!) as a Governess.
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The house is just called Apsley and was, I think, one of a group of houses next to the workhouse. The house next door but one is listed as Netherwood - I remember that house. It was used as a maternity unit for Solihull hospital in the 60s and later. It was roughly where the entrance to the hospital now is.

Apsley.jpg
Janice
 
I've been having a look for Emma Lucie Heiniger, who at just 20 in 1911, the Audens may have brought with them from York in 1908. There was a Heiniger family in York (there were a lot of Heinigers all over the UK). The father of the York is about the right age, but he married a grocer called Mabel (the sort of family the Audens may not have known, as they used to say), and the children recorded at the 1901 census don't include an Emma Lucie (not that that means much). Not a hint of Colombia, anywhere. I have a feeling that this Emma Lucie Heiniger may have had something to do with the British psycho-analyst David Eder, who spent the 1880s and early 1990s in Colombia on the family rubber plantations. Eder published in the same journals as Dr Auden; they attended the same meetings and conferences; G. A. Auden was very interested in psycho-analysis, and David Eder was medical officer of the Margaret McMillan Open Air School in Deptford in 1911. I'm sure I'll be able to make a connection between G. A. Auden and Montague David Eder, but as for Emma Lucie, I'm going to e-mail the Colombian National Archives to ask how to go about things. Ancestry doesn't reach to Bogota! And I've also discoeverd that there were sevral Swiss scientific expeditions to Colombia in the 1890s. That sounds more like the reason for the birth of a Swiss child in Colombia in 1891. All so facinating. Thank you everyone!
 
mikejee said:
I couldn't find any direct reference to when it was drained. Earlier in the thread it said early 1960s. The OS map dated 1966-68 shows it there, but that would have been the publication date, and survey would probably have been a couple of years earlier, and, though it would only have been a rough addition of some changes, I would have expected it to have noted the disappearance of a reservoir!. The 1976 map shows it gone (with images of 6 trees in the middle of where it was), so early to mid 1960s would seem to be about right.
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On re-reading this thread recently I recalled some stuff I researched back in the late 90's when I too was looking at the remnants of the old reservoir. The subject resurfaced again last week when I noted boarding being erected around the old site of the scrapyard which occupied the former reservoir site.

Clearly the recession is over and old brownfield sites suitable for housing are back in demand and perhaps Reservoir Mews might be the new must have address in coming years.

My research was in part to investigate how the watercourses in the area had been altered and how some may have been used to feed not just the reservoir but some of the extant local ponds.

Metchley pool being one of them bounded by Cross Farm Road and Bantock Way.

During a visit to the Institute of Hydrology in Wallingford we were treated to a demonstration of a smart piece of software which divided the UK into one metre squares and represented the direction of surface and sub-surface water flow by a simple arrow point using the main eight cardinal compass points. In the few minutes allocated I managed to zoom into my home location and rapidly drew a few of the arrow heads on the palm of my hand for later reference.

The attached picture is a melange of three images taken from the 1914 OS 2nd edition, the 1953 OS with contour lines emboldened and an earlier OS reprint where the "hills" are hachured with Metchley Pool centred. Grateful thanks to the Library of Birmingham and the excellent Library of Scotland online map resource.

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/images2/userpics/10449/Metchley_Pool_1.jpg

The purpose being to define the original watercourses that fed the pool and how they flowed from the Harborne ridge southwards to feed the pool which lay within the boundary of Metchley Abbey and was probable dammed along the southern boundary by the monks to act as a storage pond for edible fish.

The pool today flows out into a culvert which crosses beneath Cross Farm Road and is quite audible but then vanishes beneath waste land to the northwest of Woodleigh Avenue and probably runs beneath the today's Harborne Park Road/Metchley Lane junction to join the Bourn Brook near the site of the old reservoir.

What makes this area all the more interesting is that this was the site of an even bigger body of water which called Lake Harrison by University researchers in the mid 1920's. They postulated that a large freshwater lake formed from melt waters along the southern boundary of the ice front during the last Ice Age. The lake running southwards being bounded by the Lickey Hills chain and the Romsley Ridge.

Between the wars the survey teams carried out excavation work in and around the University and Hospital sites gathering erratic material dragged down from the North West by the advancing ice front.

Lake Harrison's levels were maintained by "leakage" between the Lickey Hills and probably formed the Arrow valley to the south.
 
Yes but whether anyone does it these days with doormen with radios at most of the pubs, I don't know. Some of the pubs have gone like the Kings Arms, Duke of York and if you ever got that far the Scarlet Pimpernel.
 
Thanks for that-
I do recall lunchtime visits to the Pimpernel and also the Bell and Lazy Fox..(a re-branded pub at the time.)
The runs/crawls were from the Kings Arms, by-passing the Duke (there was history there) and ending sometimes at the Dirty Duck (Swan?).
Junction, Plough & Green Man were the mainstays.
The detached older part of the village due to the re-centering of the village to near the rail station mirrors other suburbs in Brum (& beyond!), where the older pubs can end up off the beaten track.
 
Dirty Duck (White Swan), Green Man, Plough, Sportsman (just off the High Street), Harborne Stores, Slug & Lettuce (I have forgotten its previous name and I would never visit a pub with that name), Junction. Vine, Kings Arms (a burnt out wreck), Duke of York (demolished). Scarlet Pimpernel (burnt out & demolished) all in a straight line. The Bell and the Golden Cross (Lazy Fox has gone back to its old name) are some distance away. And on Lordswood Road, the Old House at Home and the Kings Head.
 
I forgot the White Horse also a few yards off the High Street, an odd case as it was owned by Birmingham City Council. And the Court Oak in Court Oak Road. Harborne was certainly the boozing capital of Birmingham
 
Thanks Rosie, I pass it regularly so I should have remembered but I am usually concentrating on the roundabout at that point.
 
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