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Punch Bowl Unspoilt By Progress Pub Five Ways

djkwikstar

New Member
Does anyone remember the name of the pub just past the Five Ways island on the edge of Hagley Road. It was near to Horts wine bar and where Morrisons is now. It was pub where it had a long staircase leading up to it.
 
The pub was called The Punch Bowl, it was a Bank's pub who later renamed it The Unspoilt by Progess. Can't find any photographs for it yet.
 
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Unspoilt by Progress was a Banks' marketing slogan. As a modern pub, I used to call it the Spoilt by Progress. I spent more time in the Five Ways Inn, corner of Ladywood Road and Broad Street before that was demolished then the Crusader, part of Auchinleck Square developemnt.
 
Worked over the road in Tricorn House early eighties.
Full at lunches and tea times, struggled a bit other times.
I believe long gone,was a modern flat building,no real character as I can best recall.
 
I remember that office block including the pub being demolished, I think it was in 2008. That Sunday I was leading a walk for a group of people staying at the Plough and Harrow Hotel. We were due to leave at 10.00am but we stood in the middle of the Hagley Road which had been closed to traffic and watched the block being blown up. It delayed my walk but I got the 'credit' for laying on a spectacular extra event for them.
 
I remember that office block including the pub being demolished, I think it was in 2008. That Sunday I was leading a walk for a group of people staying at the Plough and Harrow Hotel. We were due to leave at 10.00am but we stood in the middle of the Hagley Road which had been closed to traffic and watched the block being blown up. It delayed my walk but I got the 'credit' for laying on a spectacular extra event for them.
I was living abroad for years,came back just after that demolition....was rather surprised that a relatively new sixties building was demolished,that said the whole area seems a lot nicer now.
 
Yes, In the group walk that I lead mentioned above there were two of us who said as we watched it being blown up that we remembered it being built
 
Yes, In the group walk that I lead mentioned above there were two of us who said as we watched it being blown up that we remembered it being built

It either makes you feel old,or you wonder why they built these buildings to last for such a short space of time.
Silly question,but why did they feel the need to rebuild there?
 
Technology has moved on and modern building have suddenly become out of date.

In my first job we were in a brand new building. In the department where I worked there were just two telephones, one a GPO extension with all incoming and outgoing calls having to be made through the switchboard operator, the other an internal telephone system. There were no telephone or electricity sockets by the desks.

My second job was in an old office building where again there were just the two telephones in the department and telephone cables hanging down from the ceiling.

My third job was again in a brand new office and I thought it was a great achievement that every one of us had a phone on our desk on which we could make our own external calls as well as internal calls and even use the phones to dictate letters to recording machines in the typing pool. That building still stands but I don't know how they have coped with computers on every desk because when I was there there was only one electrical socket in the whole department and that was for the use of the cleaners and their sweepers.
 
Thanks David,makes sense of course ... But does seem wasteful.
Must say the new building has improved the area,used the food and cinema there a few years ago.
A strange area of extremes,but all the more interesting for it.
 
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