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Hockley Hill

Many thanks Lyn for the link to the Bond St. Baptist chapel /burial ground from 2020. I had missed It before and It makes most interesting reading. A spot I worked right next to in the white building in the seventies and must have peered into hundreds of times. I think there was just a fence at the time but you could easily see through it. It's great that it has been preserved. A bit rare these days.
During my search I was also delighted to find a thread to Mayer's Green chapel in Messenger Lane, West Bromwich. My maternal grandmother lived in Reform st a few yards away and I knew the spot very well.
It's amazing what you keep finding on this site!
 
AlanM said:
Many thanks Lyn for the link to the Bond St. Baptist chapel /burial ground from 2020. I had missed It before and It makes most interesting reading. A spot I worked right next to in the white building in the seventies and must have peered into hundreds of times. I think there was just a fence at the time but you could easily see through it. It's great that it has been preserved. A bit rare these days.
During my search I was also delighted to find a thread to Mayer's Green chapel in Messenger Lane, West Bromwich. My maternal grandmother lived in Reform st a few yards away and I knew the spot very well.
It's amazing what you keep finding on this site!
Click to expand...
happy to help alan...this forum is packed with history...would you happen to know the exact address that your mom worked at in hockley would it have been the criterion works as marked on the map on post 332...if i know that i can have a look for any photos we may have of brooks..

lyn
 
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I only know that she worked at Brooks'. Hockley. It would have been pre war I guess (that dates me).
Mikejee says they were in Great Charles Street. Maybe on the corner of Gt Charles St. and Old Snow Hill? Somewhere opposite what used to be Musical Exchanges ( now RocknRolla). Spent hours in there.
 
It would probably have been the Criterion works where my mom worked. I remember her telling me how the women were in a line cutting up leather. Mostly women she said so maybe it was at the start of the war when the men were being called up. If that were the case, mind you, my sister was born in 1939 so I don't know how she coped.
My dad failed the medical for armed service so he was in the Home Guard (Dad's Army ). I have photo of him.I might post it on the WW2 forum although it's not strictly Birmingham as it was in West Bromwich.
 
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AlanM said:
I only know that she worked at Brooks'. Hockley. It would have been pre war I guess (that dates me).
Mikejee says they were in Great Charles Street. Maybe on the corner of Gt Charles St. and Old Snow Hill? Somewhere opposite what used to be Musical Exchanges ( now RocknRolla). Spent hours in there.
Click to expand...
pretty certain your mom would have worked at the criterion works which took in livery st and gt charles st...click on link below to take you to a map...you can move the map around and if you move the blue dot to the left the old map will fade out and show you what is there now...as you will see brooks (criterion) works has now gone..

lyn

 
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Thanks Lyn, those Scottish maps are incredible. I can see where the Criterion works were now. It was quite a large factory on the corner of Livery Street and Lionel Street encompassing that whole block. Google Street view is confusing as it shows an open car park then a new red brick office block in different views at different dates.
All to these years I never knew that's where Brooks used to be even though I've walked around there many times. As pjmburns says, it's as bit of a stretch to call it Hockley.
 
AlanM said:
Thanks Lyn, those Scottish maps are incredible. I can see where the Criterion works were now. It was quite a large factory on the corner of Livery Street and Lionel Street encompassing that whole block. Google Street view is confusing as it shows an open car park then a new red brick office block in different views at different dates.
All to these years I never knew that's where Brooks used to be even though I've walked around there many times. As pjmburns says, it's as bit of a stretch to call it Hockley.
Click to expand...
i agree with you alan...i have spent many hours on the scottish maps site going all over birmingham ..because they show us what is there now i was able to go and stand on the exact spot where my nans back to back house was in paddington st..it is where i was born..

lyn
 
I'm a Yam Yam, a black country lad. My wife is a true Brummie, born in South Yardley, grew up in Sheldon.
You wouldn't believe the number of places in and around Birmingham I 've worked either as an employee or as a contractor . Not being a football fan myself, I was bemused to observe that people from the north side of the city tended to be Villa fans and from the south side mostly Blues followers. If I'm really pressed to give a team I support, it has to be the Baggies but that's off-topic.
 
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