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New Street Shutter Bunnett And Co

H

horsencart

master brummie
The shop front at the corner of New St and Pinfold St is being gutted, on the the shop front in New St there is what appears to be very old Shop front shutter how old this I do not know a very quick search of the Interweb has not found very much any road here are ten shots of the Bunnett Shutter see what you think https://www.flickr.com/photos/dofartshavelumps/39440487984/in/dateposted/

The reason why the shop front has been gutted is because of the new tramway the floor is to hight or something
 
Very interesting. Hard to date the shutter. You do wonder what type of shop would have thought shutters such as these were necessary.

Also, I expect the pillar must be around the same date. There's a smaller shutter next to the larger one - to cover over a door ? Nice find.

If we could find out what shops were here over time, it might give some clues. Viv.
 
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1851_..._Catalogue:_Class_VII.:_Joseph_Bunnett_and_Co

Im1868LAX-Bun.jpg
 
Certainly from about 1890 till the major occupier of no 81 (and for a lot of the time 80) was a wine and spirit merchant, Connolly & Olivieri
 
That explains the need for shutters then. According to the link in #6, before Connolly & Olivieri (1890) it was Scorza and Olivieri. Given this was a wine importers on these premises the shutters could date back even further. Viv.
 
I am more interested in what will happen once the ground has been lowered in Pinfold St (for the tram) when they come to rebuild the shop front will the shutter be hidden again from view, or will it go on the scrap man,s lorry, or will it find its way into a museum, this shutter is many years old, what will become of it ?
 
Edit. Post copied to here from the Ghost signs thread. Wending our way from the Art Gallery to the station we spotted this building undergoing a facelift. There are some lovely slatted wooden blinds on show and I think that rather than remove them with the heavy brackets they merely covered them up. Parker took the picture of the beam as well as he likes cast iron and beams and admittedly it is a nice one. The other photos show the surrounding buildings - we think the blinds continued across the adjacent cream painted building. The blinds appear to say 'Town & Country'. Any ideas of what sort of shop this was please?

Nice blue road sign too. Do you think it's original?
 

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There's a history of revolving iron shutter manufacture in Birmingham. Below are just two - the first going back to the 1860s. The 'ghost' names on the shutters make them a nice record of retail history too. Viv.
 

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Thanks for posting Vivienne. Have a look at the shutter I put a filter on cleaned up the name of the shop it says Town and Country .
 

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Viv, I don't think I've seen that picture of New Street before - I'm fascinated by the structure over the sign 'Guggenheim' is it made entirely of glass do you think?
 
Looks like it Lady P. I think it was replaced by brick in later images. Shall see if I can find one. Viv.
 
A composite of images. The structure on top does seem to change over time. I think the image with the bus travelling down New Street and with Dale Forty in the building is the latest of the four, dated 1945. Viv.

IMG_0108.JPG
 
Thanks Viv, yes it does change. The glass one would have made a great studio with all that light and it was over the road from the Society of Artists' building.

I love to see all the sun blinds pulled down. I wonder what they did on a Sunday? No shops open and they could hardly leave the blinds down for 24 hours could they? Perhaps they had that yellow cellophane over the windows or internal blinds when the shop was closed. I'm sure we went window shopping on a Sunday though - not much else to do was there? One question answered and several more asked!
 
The Shutters (there are two) will soon disappear from view as they are working on the shop front they will still be there but be behind the shop sign this was the sign they uncovered at the corner of Stephenson place and Stephenson St it is still there but covered up
https://flic.kr/p/nzEdtW
 
Well that’s good H&C, some sensible person made a worthwhile decision. And thanks to your efforts and Lady P we have a good record of it, despite it disappearing from view. Viv.
 
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