• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Harborne

I moved onto Humphrey Middlemore Drive in 1987 when Barratts built their housing estate there. I recently was in the area and went and had a look and found the area around Metchley Lane very claustraphobic due to the ever extending QE Hospital. How the area has changed even over the past 20 years.
 
thanks for that tydavnet, I wonder what your surname was and where you lived in Weoley castle? I lived in Milcote Road from 1957/1964, and went Ilmington Road did you?
kind regards paul
 
I dont know if these have been on here before, but apologies if they have.

Princes Corner 1930s
Harborne High Street 1922

(Replacements)

 

Attachments

  • Princes Corner 1930s harborne.jpg
    Princes Corner 1930s harborne.jpg
    83.9 KB · Views: 41
  • Harborne High Street 1922.jpg
    Harborne High Street 1922.jpg
    48.9 KB · Views: 45
Last edited by a moderator:
I had my first hair cut in the big chair and a board laid across the arms in the hairdressers facing the duke of york at princes corner anno 1952.
thanks for the memory. paul
 
I went to that school Elizabeth in either 1956 or 7, I was bullied badly so my parents took me away and sent me to, Our Lady of St Rose of Lima in Weoley castle.
regards
paul
 
I assume it was the same as metchley Grange, in what was then Grange road, but is now Malins Road. there is also a Metchley abbey nearby

mapmetchleygrangec1890.jpg
 
Thank you, Mike. My OS map runs out at Metchley Abbey so its the first time I have seen Metchley Grange footprint. I do not think the photos in the link in post 370 are of Metchley Abbey, which in 1911 had 14 rooms. I can tell from the 1911 census the Metchley Grange was far larger at 22 rooms than the Abbey & your map seems to confirm the Abbey was the more modest.
 
Metchley Grange, a mansion near Malins Road was owned by Sir Henry Wiggin, a philanthropist, last squire of Harborne and Lord Mayor of Birmingham etc.
Metchley Abbey was originally a farmhouse but the abbey was built later in the Gothic style and was the home of Edward Freeman, Victorian History writer.
 
Hi

during my family research, i notice my grandparents and great grandparents all lived in Metchley lane at some time or other in the 1930-50's - would any of them be remembered at all. We never knew that side of the family.

William Collinson Mansell and wife Emma
William Collinson George Mansell and wife Lily - sons Basil, Neville and daughter Joyce
Ernest Collinson Mansell and wife Olive May - children Betty, Patricia and Ronald

would love to know anything about any of them...

All since past.

Thanks

sharon
 
paul stacey said:
hi liz
thanks for that I hope you don't mind these questions but I cannot remember names now some 55 yrs on but I had a mate who lived in the prefabs on the road which went towards selly oak that started at the green man and went past the blue coat school then down a hill, the prefabs were on the left. what was the name of the road if you remember.
paul
Click to expand...
bb0426.jpg

Found this photo Paul prefabs on the left, Metchley lane 1966
 
Last edited by a moderator:
thanks elizebeth, I remember metchley lane very well now and the times I went with mom to see ruby and stev, thank you very much.
paul
 
Hi everyone; Has anyone any memories of the caretakers ( the Hughes family) at St Peter's School, Harborne in the late 1940's and 1950's. My brother remembers playing with Betty Hughes and her brother and I remember practising my tennis against the wall of a building in the playground when the school was closed in the evening. We also went to the shelters in the school at the beginning of WW2 when there were air raids !! At that time we lived very near to the school. Regards - KINS
 
Hi All,

I was looking at an old 1955 OS map of Harborne, and am intrigued to find out what the buildings were at the western end of Metcheley Grange, situated between where Leahurst Crescent now lies and the Duck Pond. They are not part of the estate, because it was not built until 1970, and i can not find out anything about them.

By the shape and layout, i thought maybe a left over from the war, either to do with the AA units in the area, or the stationing of US troops, so maybe just temporary buildings?

Also, i would like to know a little more concerning the duck pond, which local fisherman now use. When was it created? and to whom did it belong?

I have also heared local gossip of somebody drowning?

Very grateful for any help!
 
Good photo of corner of Serpentine Road. A lady with an Irish accent and carrying a large suitcase on Harborne High Street once asked me for directions to Turpentine Road
 
how many times as a boy and youth I ran up those few steps of the Harborne baths, the new one looks fine but I would miss the old ones if I still lived there.
paul
 
When I was in secondary school, I used to go to a house in Harborne to do 'housewifery'. Teachers used to board at this house, and we used to have to clean and lay the fires etc. Does anyone else remember doing this, and if so, where was the house?
 
One of the things I campaigned for with the new Harborne baths was the retension of the old art work over the doorway with the original openning date, as this represented the pre-1974 City coat of arms. They preserved what they could but could not save the plaster work so they have created a replica where neccesary. This is a good feature. The baths formally open on 3rd January but I think they will have a gala opening ceremony later.
 
Hi Maggs: It was probably the house in Vivian Road, Harborne. This came from the https://www.oldladywood.co.uk/memories2.htm site. Pupils from Ladywood travelled to Harborne for Housewifery classes. It was a similar set up to the one I attended on Gravelly Hill in Erdington just along the road from Fentham Road Girls School. I have a photo of this one that I put up on the Friends Reunited Fentham site I took the photo two years ago. The house is private these days and could be flats. I would like to find out more about these houses in Brum that were teacher's abodes. and used in this housewifery programme. I remember us having a lot of fun although I hated the formal classes of lampshade making!
 
Thank you very much Jennyann. As a friend had suggested Vivian Rd, then I think this must have been the one. Oh yes, we used to have fun too, and I didn't really mind going there at all. Living in a back to back house as a child, it was nice to see how 'the other half' lived, and to imagine that one day, I might be able to live in a house like that. I don't remember the formal classes of lampshade making. We did knit, and I was hopeless at that. We had to join up with a friend and make one sock each to make the pair, well mine never did get any further than the ribbing, and even that was a mess.
 
Maggs, I can totally relate to your situation. I felt sorry for the teachers in the house we went to. A lot of Erdington schools used the house for Housewifery and all th teachers belongings were locked away for obvious reasons. By the time I went to the house in 1956 things were changing for women and the "Stay on at School" programmes were coming into force...thank goodness. I was hopeless at sewing and knitting
and girls were expected to be good at these things back then. It took me a whole term at Fentham to make a dirdnl skirt with an elasticated top! Later on some of the secondary schools rented out small flats for Housewifery classes or built a special room inside some of the local schools.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top