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Old street pics..

Hockley Station was the other side of Icknield Street from the present Jewellery Quarter Station. I can remember wondering into the site through an open gate in Pitsford Street in about 1990 and although the buildings had gone the platforms were still there and the there were unguarded holes in the platforms with the steps down into the subway. I don't know the date of this photo but I remember the station as a four platform station which is not obvious from this photo.
 
Here is the scene in the two directions after demolition of the station buildings. I took these in the 1970s
 

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David. I only ever visited the station after services were ended, but the c 1955 and 1918 map show only two passenger platforms. There were others under the goods shed canopy (on the bottom left hand corner of the map), but these were purely for goods and a bit apart from the passenger station
 

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Each physical 'platform' has two sides for trains, hence four platforms (i.e. numbered 1. 2. 3 and 4, serving tracks coloured red below.
 

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The maps show only three through platforms as the most northerly does not show the tracks continuing to Snow Hill. How I remember the station is that at weekends I used to spend hours on both New Street and Snow Hill although I was never a train spotter in the way of noting loco numbers. On Sunday afternoons having travelled into Birmingham by Corporation bus, I would spend time on Snow Hill Station and then catch a 4.00pm train to West Smethwick Junction and get a Midland Red bus home. At 4.00pm on Sundays there was a double departure with a steam loco hauled train to Malvern from platform 5/6 and a DMU to Stourbridge from platform 4. These two trains would run side by side to Hockley where the DMU would stop but the steam train would continue to its first stop at West Smethwick switching from the main line to the Stourbridge line at what is now The Hawthorns station. I would travel on either train as the whim took me on the day. When I described this journey to the boys at school they did not understand why I would ever travel on the DMU in preference to the steam. I explained that from the DMU I could watch the steam train.

This answers Bhatti's question above.
Note to the moderators. Do you think these posts should be copied to a suitable Railways thread?
 
[
carolina said:
There was a solicitor called John Wilkes Unett who had lived in Birmingham and Smethwick. He owned lots of land in Smethwick so I presume the streets were named after him.
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QUOTE="Astoness, post: 430263, member: 2686"]dennis howell tries out his loud hailer at the back of his coventry road committee rooms dated 1961

and 2 pics of church lane aston dated 1969

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[/QUOTE]
Astoness said:
dennis howell tries out his loud hailer at the back of his coventry road committee rooms dated 1961

and 2 pics of church lane aston dated 1969

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Astoness said:
lodge road hockley dated 1961

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miller st newtown under demolision dated 1967

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wheeler st date 1966

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wheeler st dated 1966


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paul stacey said:
great photo's from the age of steam, looks to be around 1964/65 period.Paul
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When I look at all these old brick houses in your pictures Lynne, it saddens me to think there are people still having to live in them. Up the back yards, dirty looking streets outdoor tiolets, rooms so small you can hardly move around in them. They should all be Bulldosed and new ones built for the people of Birmingham inner cities to live in.
Bless you All. Wallyb.
 
wallyb71, I was under the impression this type of housing you refer to as long since gone. Where about in Birmingham are they situated ? I lived in a back to back for a few years in Aston when leaving the RAF in 1956, but the whole area was demolished in the 60's and I think by the 70's/80's all sub standard housing had been either demolished or modernised, indoor toilet and bathroom fitted, central heating, double glazing etc ... My daughter and Husband bought a terraced house in Fashoda Rd, Selly Park built in 1904 and brought it up to standard and lived there 25 years before moving to West Heath, I regularly visited them and was impressed in the way they improved it, it as now been turned into students lodgings. Eric
 
cookie273uk said:
wallyb71, I was under the impression this type of housing you refer to as long since gone. Where about in Birmingham are they situated ? I lived in a back to back for a few years in Aston when leaving the RAF in 1956, but the whole area was demolished in the 60's and I think by the 70's/80's all sub standard housing had been either demolished or modernised, indoor toilet and bathroom fitted, central heating, double glazing etc ... My daughter and Husband bought a terraced house in Fashoda Rd, Selly Park built in 1904 and brought it up to standard and lived there 25 years before moving to West Heath, I regularly visited them and was impressed in the way they improved it, it as now been turned into students lodgings. Eric
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Hello Eric, I was referring to all the housing I saw in the pictures that Astoness posted from the Sixties, But as you say most of all the housing from back then has been replaced. Thanks for your reply.
 
good evening alli worked on quite few mods in the seventies and eighties,
they were in quite a state I wonder if they are still in good shape or are they just as bad now as they were? from what I've seen on the google street cams some of the areas are a not very nice.
 
Nico said:
I had a cupcake or an ice bun every day from Wimbushes. Ours became 3 Cooks or Braggs or Greggs.One after the other.With a pull down front and no door so th pigeons come in.
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This brought back memories as Wimbush used to have a main bakery down Kyrwicks Lane, Sparkbrook. Or at least it was reached by going down that way. In the late 1950s, local kids, including me and my older sister, would check out their yard for stale buns and cakes that had been left outside. Looking back, I suppose the workers left them there for us. We considered them a real treat!

Regards, Ray.
 
Ray T said:
This brought back memories as Wimbush used to have a main bakery down Kyrwicks Lane, Sparkbrook. Or at least it was reached by going down that way. In the late 1950s, local kids, including me and my older sister, would check out their yard for stale buns and cakes that had been left outside. Looking back, I suppose the workers left them there for us. We considered them a real treat!

Regards, Ray.
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I tell a lie! The memory playing tricks again. It wasn't a Wimbush bakery down Kyrwicks Lane, it was Hawleys bakery that provided us kids with the stale treats. Ah, happy days.

Regards, Ray
 
bhatti said:
yeh remember that,we used to pass it going to pictures alhambra picture house i think.
,used to be opposite on moseley road
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That fits with my memories too, Bhatti. The Alhambra was thereabouts and was a Saturday morning venue.
 
The tag with this image says 40,42 and 44 Northwood Street. Looking closely at the metal plate over the court passage suggests it is 'Court 1' but not definite. The substantial factory-like building on the left does not seem to be anywhere on the street today. A close up of the people in the photo with comments is in another thread here. https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...our-old-street-pics.41947/page-99#post-580529
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image is from the Shoothill site.
 
Have enlarged the court number (from earlier part photo), and negatised (is that a word) it.This makes it look like 17. Have estimated where 40.42 & 44 were on c1889 map. You can see from the map that court 17 is next to no 44
 

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mikejee said:
Have enlarged the court number (from earlier part photo), and negatised (is that a word) it.This makes it look like 17. Have estimated where 40.42 & 44 were on c1889 map. You can see from the map that court 17 is next to no 44
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The advert from 1866 above would probably refer to no. 17 and not court 17?
 
34-38 Northwood Street c1900 showing the Carpathian Manufacturing Co.
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from the Shoothill Collection and image only visible if logged in
 
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Lennox St. Was it Gosta Green? Not sure. Posted to Facebook by my cousin.
 

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mikejee said:
Have enlarged the court number (from earlier part photo), and negatised (is that a word) it.This makes it look like 17. Have estimated where 40.42 & 44 were on c1889 map. You can see from the map that court 17 is next to no 44
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What an interesting theme one simple but brilliant photo has spawned, but can someone tell me what is the Shoothill collection?

Bob
 
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