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Smethwick

Hello Astonian
Nice to hear from you.I was there for 46 years starting in Testing M/c dept,then Planning.
I have been in touch with Stephen Barker who is also on this forum.He was in the Drg Office.
I belong to a group of ex Avery's who meet every 2 weeks at the old Nettlefolds sports ground
in Thimbermill Rd.There are about 60 of us all in the 70's or 80's.We play games listen to lectures
Have a raffle and cup of tea and biscuits.All good fun
Take care
John Hughes
 
Hi Astonian, My father also worked at Avery at the beginning of WW2 and his surname, my maiden name, is Smart. Also my Granny Smart's maiden name was Hughes , May Hughes.
 
Can anyone help with this one please. If one walks UP Raglan Rd from Cape Hill, there were two roads on the right that ran from Raglan Rd to Grove Lane. They were demolished and a new estate built sometime after I left to join up so it would be after 1961. The one I'm interested in is the 2nd one up. It was on the opposite side of Raglan Rd but just above Raglan Ave and at one time had a bookie on one corner. Can anyone remember the name of this road please. And out of interest why was it demolished ? As I remember the houses were OK.
 
Hi Bootneck, first was Reynolds St. second Wills St. third was Unett St. Woodlands St. then St. Matthews Rd. It's a playground Open Space, I passed this morning but I can't remember what it's called!!!
Can't find Raglan Ave, but the pages are very tatty and the price on the front is 4/- so I don't know the exact age of it. I think the area was demolished in the 70'-80's.
Mom was born in Grove Lane but she always considered herself a Brummie as it's on the Border!!
rosie.
 
Rosie you're a star. I searched loads of maps but they all had it as it is now. Wills St it is. Many, many thanks.
 
Rosie you're a star. I searched loads of maps but they all had it as it is now. Wills St it is. Many, many thanks.

Hello Bootneck,

Yes, Wills Street.

When I was a lad, we lived in a terraced house in Grove Lane between Woodland St and Unett St, opposite GKN St George's Works. Our houses were demolished in 1969 (when I was 14) and we moved to the new estate on corner of Cape Hill and Raglan Road (just behind where the Beehive pub used to be on the corner).

That new estate was completed in 1969 - all the houses in Wills Street and Reynolds Street were demolished to make way for it. All the old houses (many of them were primitive/back to backs) in that area were demolished.

Hope that information helps, happy memories

Paul
aka Brum Ray
 
Cheers Paul. I lived in Raglan Road and new someone in Wills St and wondered what had happened to those houses. Thanks very much.
 
Thanks Shaun. I've seen the 'new' estate on google earth as well as my old house. Cheers again.

OH,OH, I've just noticed 2 people are calling it Wills St but Shaun has called it Willis St. Which is correct please ?
 
Can anyone help me please?
I have been told that there is is a Memorial to my great grandparents John & Jane Clark at Holy Trinity Church Smethwick.
Jane died the 15th Nov. 1883 aged 78 and John died the following day 16th Nov. 1883.


I would appreciate it ever so much if someone could please confirm this information and if it is true perhaps someone could tell me what it meant to have a Memorial in a Church at that time. Any information would be immensely appreciated. I have written the Pastor twice but no reply to date, I have also googled it and no joy either.
Many thanks,
Maria
 
Hi Maria,
Do you mean a gravestone, or a memorial plaque? I've never been inside the church, but I know that most of the gravestones outside have been moved (something that makes me so cross!).
Just nearby to Holy Trinity Church is Smethwick Library, they have an Archive, and you can email them, I'm sure they will help. archives_service@sandwell.gov
I do hope you find what you are looking for.
rosie.
 
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Hi Maria, I have just remembered I bought a C.D from B.M.S.G.H. about Staffordshire Memorial Inscriptions............Holy Trinity is on there!!

Here's the Inscription, the grave may not still be there though.

Affectionate Remembrance of John Clark who died November 16th. 1883 aged 76 yrs.
Also Jane wife of the above who died November 13th. 1883 aged 78yrs.
Thy Will Not Mine Oh Lord.

Hope this helps
rosie.
 
I have just come across this site and am looking forward to reading the posts regarding smethwick. I grew up in smethwick, i went to corbett street infants school, mrs robinson was the head mistress then, sadly,thats the only name i can recall. There was a bakery on the corner of corbett street,the cakes were lovely especially the dripping cakes, my mum used to buy fresh cream from there, she used to take a bowl in. Then i went to cape hill junior school, i well remember the smell from mitchells and butlers brewery, think it was the hops.Teachers at cape hill, mr Burns was the head master and he was also a j.p, there was mr lane, and mr sharma, also a teacher who had wild hair, we called him fuzzy peg, he dies suddenly from a heart attack.There was also a mr johns, a welsh teacher, who i disliked intensely.Mostly happy days here. I moved up to Shireland high school in 1973, mr hill was the head master, he scared me!! I lived in windmill lane in the new town houses from 1971, we had the chinese playground opposite, it was on two levels, one we called big china and the other little china.My mum worked at gkn, i remember going down to meet her outside the work gates in heath street on friday at tea time when she was on afternoon shift, she would give me money to go up the precint to the chippy to get tea for me, my brother and sister.On friday nights, there was a disco at st matthews school 7-10, we felt really grown up being allowed to go and it was great fun.Saturday we would go up the cape to the market to do the shopping, the market was great back then, there was something for everyone, i remember buying ex model shoes for about 50p, and buying the latest fashions. There was a china stall, teddy greys, len russells fruit and veg who i worked for after leaving school, there was also his son tony who also sold fruit and veg and then later, tonys son also went into the family buisness.The little market was just as good, the last time i was there it was very run down and not at all how i remember it. All of my family lived close to each other in those days.My great nan lived in oxford road smethwick, we used to ride up to see her and do odd jobs and shopping for her, the days seemed sunny and longer then, oxford street seemed to be full of old people.There was a fruit and veg shop, a little shop which sold everything, sweets included, just down by st stephens church( no longer there) there was a butchers where i would go to get my nan a chop with a kidney if possible.The coal man used to call to deliver coal for her real fire and davenports for beer.On saturdays if west brom were at home, you could see people walking to the hawthorns in their hundreds and the noise was deafening. Smethwick high street was brilliant, it had everything including woolworths, the little toll house was a hat shop back then, happy days
 
Hello lynsey, yes I loved that shoe-stall too! Years ago I had red ones, blue ones shell-pink ones for dancing.......now it's flatties and arthritis!! So sad the real Markets have gone, it's a retail park now.
Mom went to Cape schools but that was in 1930,s!
rosie.
 
My husband was born in Smethwick, he went to Crocketts Lane Infant / Junior school then went to Sandwell Secondry modern until he left to go to work. I moved to Smethwick When we got married 1972, we lived in Aitken House, one the high story flats in Grove Lane we were there for approx three years . My husband got himself a job at Mitchells & Butlers Brewery, he only had to fall out of bed into work which was great in those days. We moved to Milton Road just off Londerry Lane. in 1975. I loved shopping in the two markets ,i had many a bargain. We have since moved to the Great Barr area but we very often take a drive around smethwick how things have changed.
 
Wow Rosie, this is fablous, thank you ever so much, I have been running around in circles for ages looking for this information!
If you don’t mind could I ask a few more questions, is this a grave inscription or a memorial? If it is a grave insc. can I persume that my great, great grandparents are buried at Holy Trinity Church? As you mentioned that the grave stones had been removed from the church yard, were the remains removed too? And if so where to?
John & Jane’s son John, my great grandfather died 23 July 1933 at the Infirmary, Western Road, Birmingham but of 157 Price St., Smethwick,could he also be buried at Holy Trinity & his wife Mary Elizabeth Clark nee Oake? (I don’t know when she died).

I see you were born in Edgbastion, did you know Poplar Avenue? My dad and some if his siblings were born there?

Once again, many thanks Rosie, I really do appreciate your kindness, this is my third atempt trying to send you this post, so hopefully third time lucky!

Kind regards, Maria
 
Hi Maria, Glad you were pleased! I am fairly sure that this is a grave inscription, the gravestones have been moved but the remains will most likely have been left and grassed over. Have you tried looking on any of the online maps...the ones where you can "walk" down the street? I don't know if you can access them in Spain. Smethwick postcode is usually B66. Try it for Poplar Avenue, B17. Yes, I know it well, the houses are huge, not like the one was born in!!
The later burials you mention will probably be in The Uplands Cemetery, the Library have them on microfiche and may make a small charge to search, they are very helpful.
Hope this helps.
rosie.
 
Hi yogimon, Aitken House was named after Dr. Aitken, his Surgery was on Cape Hill opposite the Brewery. He looked after our family when I was baby!!!
rosie.
 
Hi Maria, I have a friend that attends Holy Trinity Church Smethwick and is part of a team that do a lot of work there. I have asked her to see what she can find out about tour relations. I'll get back to you as soon as I hear anything. Carol.
 
Hi Rosie,
Thanks very much for all your help, yes of course I have been down Poplar Ave. and all addresses on census & certs. that I have come across so far related to my family in Birmingham with Google map with street view, the sad thing is I never knew I had a connection with Birmingham until a few years ago when my father passed away, why I will probably never know but I'm so happy to have come across this wonderful site & all you great and kind folk who are unveiling my past little by little!

Hi Carol, also a very big thanks to you for your kind offer, I will be really looking forward to hearing from you.

With every best wish & kind regards,
Maria
 
Hi My Dad Victor Frederick Ball did his apprenticeship at what became how Hope too, he ended up foreman, I think he started in 1941 at 14 but may have been factory boy before he was apprenticed, love to hear any stories of the site, during this time his family were bombed out and had to move into a prefab,
 
".........Interestingly Smethwick now gets regularly mentioned on "Flog it" and some of the other antique programes as it was the Home of the Ruskin Pottery. I must admit I had not heard of it until a year or so back but its wares are highly sought after being of ceramics coated with various compounds then fired at a high tempreture and forming some amazing colours. The pottery is marked "West Smethwick" and I assume this is more towards the Oldbury end of the town...."

I was trawling through this old thread as a former Smethwickian and thought my input here may be of interest. The site of the Ruskin pottery is now marked by an unadopted industrial road - Ruskin Place, which is 200 yards West of the junction of Spon Lane/West Park Road and Oldbury Road - according to Wikipedia, numbers 173 and 174. I was born and lived for 16 years in No. 285. Oldbury Road, almost opposite. The house had been occupied during the early 1900's by the Taylors, who were the founders and owners of the Ruskin pottery. At the bottom of the garden was a brick outhouse, which had contained a kiln and I believe experimental firings were carried out there. The garden soil was alliterated with test pieces of the Taylors' work - small oval, round, square and heart shaped tiles (approx 1.5"), which were unearthed evey time the soil was turned. Inside the house, in the front room, was a slate fireplace decorated generously with Ruskin tiles of various shapes and colours. I wish I had that fireplace now - it would be a real collectors item, and probably unique.

Whenever Ruskin pottery is mentioned on one of the antique programmes, I get feelings of nostalgia for the old house but not enough to make me want to live in a draughty old Victorian place again - with half gas lights and half electric, lead pipes and an outside loo prone to freezing in the winter:crushed:
 
".........Interestingly Smethwick now gets regularly mentioned on "Flog it" and some of the other antique programes as it was the Home of the Ruskin Pottery. I must admit I had not heard of it until a year or so back but its wares are highly sought after being of ceramics coated with various compounds then fired at a high tempreture and forming some amazing colours. The pottery is marked "West Smethwick" and I assume this is more towards the Oldbury end of the town...."

I was trawling through this old thread as a former Smethwickian and thought my input here may be of interest. The site of the Ruskin pottery is now marked by an unadopted industrial road - Ruskin Place, which is 200 yards West of the junction of Spon Lane/West Park Road and Oldbury Road - according to Wikipedia, numbers 173 and 174. I was born and lived for 16 years in No. 285. Oldbury Road, almost opposite. The house had been occupied during the early 1900's by the Taylors, who were the founders and owners of the Ruskin pottery. At the bottom of the garden was a brick outhouse, which had contained a kiln and I believe experimental firings were carried out there. The garden soil was alliterated with test pieces of the Taylors' work - small oval, round, square and heart shaped tiles (approx 1.5"), which were unearthed evey time the soil was turned. Inside the house, in the front room, was a slate fireplace decorated generously with Ruskin tiles of various shapes and colours. I wish I had that fireplace now - it would be a real collectors item, and probably unique.

Whenever Ruskin pottery is mentioned on one of the antique programmes, I get feelings of nostalgia for the old house but not enough to make me want to live in a draughty old Victorian place again - with half gas lights and half electric, lead pipes and an outside loo prone to freezing in the winter:crushed:

I too have a bit of a fascination with the pieces made there, in fact a few years back we bought two pieced of Ruskin at an auction in Stourbridge, a large fruit bowl which is used for it's intended purpose and matching small vase which is slightly chipped , I can't remember what we paid for them but it was not an earth shattering price. Ruskin pieces had the year of manufacture on their bases which I think is a nice touch and the date is clearly to be seen on the fruit bowl. The small vase does not carry a date and this did made me slightly suspicious but it was sold with the other piece and is an exact match in colour ect so perhaps they were fired together?
 
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