Most definitely Kings Norton Green. We live there. Fentham
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Kings Norton
- Thread starter Brum Burgin
- Start date
A very familiar scene from our younger days for many of us. All that was needed was a trickle of water. This was in Kings Norton Park. Viv.
A charming image of the Green dated 1909.
Viv.
Viv.
Here is a photograph of the Old Bell pub , at 5, The Green Kings Norton, also shown in the postcard on post 64. The landlord, James Fletcher can be seen above the entrance. He is listed there in directories in 1915 and 1921, but not 1913, and is on the electoral roll in 1922, but not in 1925
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I lived in Kings Norton until 2016 and before the corner shop became residential it was a small store/café The Last Chance Post and then a few years later The Toast Office but I don't think it ever regained the interest or presence of the original in post#67 despite the witty names chosen by their owners!
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seems an obvious question given the name and the post box outside but was it ever an actual post office..
lyn
I am new here and enjoying reading about Kings Norton. I moved there in 1945 and went first to the local school and then on to Kings Norton Grammar school. After doing my nurse’s training in Worcester I returned to Birmingham to do my midwifery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and worked in Ladywood and then back at the Q E on the maternity wards. I married a Dr and we came to Canada 1972. I have many fond memories of Birmingham and finding this forum very helpful by jogging my memory while writing my memoirs for my family
now that is a good point neil...maybe its name did relate to the post box outside...never thought of that
lyn
but Camp Lane does have a redeeming historical link which is that it commemorates the time in the 1660s when Queen Henrietta Maria's army camped out near the church on Kings Norton Green - she stayed at The Saracens Head (next to the church) which was recently renovated but is currently mothballed, or appears to be.
About Kings Norton Park. In October 1920, 25.5 acres of land at Kings Norton between West Hill Road and Pershore Road were purchased by The Birmingham Civic Society for £3062 and later presented to the City as a park and playing fields with an additional £1300 for planning and to fund "a kiosk, entrance gates and seats". Known as Kings Norton Playing fields and later just as Kings Norton Park, "the Council of the Society [chose this land] ...because it slopes up the hill towards the old village and away from the City. The approach to Kings Norton is thus kept open, and a fine view of the church....at the crown of the hill" (Haywood,W. The Work of Birmingham Civic Society from June 1918 - June 1946 pp17-19).
A "central pavillion" was envisaged to the Pershore Road entrance but I don't think it was ever completed:
(See: Haywood, W. The Work of Birmingham Civic Society from June 1918 - June 1946 p19)
A "central pavillion" was envisaged to the Pershore Road entrance but I don't think it was ever completed:
(See: Haywood, W. The Work of Birmingham Civic Society from June 1918 - June 1946 p19)
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Is this a penny you see before you? ..........
Yes it is, you are not deluded! - but if you look just to the left of the date stamp you'll see an additional mark absent from most other pennies:
"KN" imprints the mark for the Kings Norton Mint. I had no idea that there had been a Mint in Kings Norton but in fact the King’s Norton Metal Company provided the first competition to the Birmingham Mint when it was sub-contracted to supply bronze blanks to the Royal Mint in 1912. In 1918 and 1919 it struck pennies like the one shown here. The company primarily produced ammunition and rolled metal and that did not change but it's role as a Mint stands out in my view. As a mark of our wasteful times the Veolia Household Recycling Centre and various manufacturing warehouses now sit on top of the old mint's footprint.
See:
1, https://oldcurrencyexchange.com/2017/05/29/british-pennies-struck-by-the-kings-norton-mint/
2. https://www.royalmint.com/shop/mona...t-Starter-Coins-Emergency-Penny-Kings-Norton/
3. https://britishlistedbuildings.co.u...-with-the-worcester-and-birmingham-canal-ward [because this rare guillotine-stop canal lock is more or less adjacent to the original site of the Kings Norton Metal company about 100 yards further on down Lifford Lane.]
Yes it is, you are not deluded! - but if you look just to the left of the date stamp you'll see an additional mark absent from most other pennies:
"KN" imprints the mark for the Kings Norton Mint. I had no idea that there had been a Mint in Kings Norton but in fact the King’s Norton Metal Company provided the first competition to the Birmingham Mint when it was sub-contracted to supply bronze blanks to the Royal Mint in 1912. In 1918 and 1919 it struck pennies like the one shown here. The company primarily produced ammunition and rolled metal and that did not change but it's role as a Mint stands out in my view. As a mark of our wasteful times the Veolia Household Recycling Centre and various manufacturing warehouses now sit on top of the old mint's footprint.
See:
1, https://oldcurrencyexchange.com/2017/05/29/british-pennies-struck-by-the-kings-norton-mint/
2. https://www.royalmint.com/shop/mona...t-Starter-Coins-Emergency-Penny-Kings-Norton/
3. https://britishlistedbuildings.co.u...-with-the-worcester-and-birmingham-canal-ward [because this rare guillotine-stop canal lock is more or less adjacent to the original site of the Kings Norton Metal company about 100 yards further on down Lifford Lane.]
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Kings Norton Pastor Lambasts the Maypole Festivities....
Kings Norton and the Old Grammar School (above) have an unexpected connection with banning the Maypole. Thomas Hall (1610-1665) was the Calvinist and Presbyterian minister at Kings Norton and master of the old Grammar School. The Maypole had been banned by the Puritans in 1644 but was one of the first customs to be reinstated by Charles II in 1660 - just in time for Hall to publish in dismay his pamphlet " Funebria Floræ, the Downfall of May-Games" (the 'Funeral of Flora' being an allusion to Flora the Roman goddess of flowers and fertility). His title goes on: "...wherein Is set forth the rudeness, prophaneness, stealing, drinking, fighting, dancing, whoring, mis-rule, mis-spence of precious time, contempt of God, and godly Magistrates, Ministers and People, which oppose the Rascality and rout, in this their open prophaneness, and Heathenish Customs...."
'Funebria Floræ' might seem an extreme, even hilarious tirade today but Hall was a pious and learned man and in 1662 he refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity and was ejected from both the school and the church. His health declined and he died three years later. An interesting, complicated and, he seems to me to have been, a rather tragic figure.
See:
Thomas, D. The Autobiography and Library of Thomas Hall B.D. (1610-1665). Worcester Historical Society, 2015
Kings Norton and the Old Grammar School (above) have an unexpected connection with banning the Maypole. Thomas Hall (1610-1665) was the Calvinist and Presbyterian minister at Kings Norton and master of the old Grammar School. The Maypole had been banned by the Puritans in 1644 but was one of the first customs to be reinstated by Charles II in 1660 - just in time for Hall to publish in dismay his pamphlet " Funebria Floræ, the Downfall of May-Games" (the 'Funeral of Flora' being an allusion to Flora the Roman goddess of flowers and fertility). His title goes on: "...wherein Is set forth the rudeness, prophaneness, stealing, drinking, fighting, dancing, whoring, mis-rule, mis-spence of precious time, contempt of God, and godly Magistrates, Ministers and People, which oppose the Rascality and rout, in this their open prophaneness, and Heathenish Customs...."
'Funebria Floræ' might seem an extreme, even hilarious tirade today but Hall was a pious and learned man and in 1662 he refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity and was ejected from both the school and the church. His health declined and he died three years later. An interesting, complicated and, he seems to me to have been, a rather tragic figure.
See:
Thomas, D. The Autobiography and Library of Thomas Hall B.D. (1610-1665). Worcester Historical Society, 2015
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