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Soho Road Handsworth

Stephen, there were four buildings between Barn Lane and Boulton Road, not just two. I thought three, but the map shows four. If you Google Street View Linwood Road and stand on the corner of Dawson Road (the house I lived in was demolished, but why I don't know) you will see the current building where Darlington's was and even the Cross Guns. I know I could see two shops, but only looking at this yesterday I realised I would have been able to see much more, and possibly even up to Boulton Road, but not the road itself. I was not aware that Boulton Road had been widened, although that's not a surprise as it was quite narrow, especially as it is on the No 11 route. Soho Road sort of looks the same, but at the same time it has changed. I had no idea about the accident, but it would have been one of the first two shops (out of the four) that were hit. Darlingtons was on the corner of Barn Lane, and was even there in 1907 according to Kelly's.

We only lived there for four years having moved from a green and pleasant suburb, but there was something in those four years that struck a chord with me, and I have fond memories of my time at Linwood Road (I even met my husband in Handsworth Park in August 1963). I did not remember the Cross Guns until I saw it on Google. I think the pub must have been built in the 1930's, but once I saw it, I was back living in Linwood Road, how strange that feeling was.

The shop that is the centre of this conversation was so very tiny, I am not sure how they made a living from it - it must have only been about 10ft square, very dark inside, with quite a rough wood counter stocked with goods - I would imagine that this shop had not changed for close on 70 or 80 years.

I know I was right about The Little Red Shop and Handsworth Historical Society have confirmed the same too. I do have a very good memory, but if I am ever proved wrong I am also happy to admit it. We can't always be right. I am hoping that Reg from Handsworth His Soc has got a photograph, it would be nice to see it - I shall post it, not keep it to myself. I seem to remember that it had a distinct look of an old cottage about it, but I might be wrong there.

The shops were not built on Soho Road until about 1900, so it is possible that the shop initially was just a tiny residence that escaped the bulldozer. You know if I had one wish granted at this moment it would be to spend a couple of hours in 1962's Soho Road and take a good look at the buildings, as I am sure there were a few gems amongst them. The shoe shop on the Corner of Linwood Road is exactly the same and has some interesting terracotta work adorning the corner. Thank goodness for Google Street View - we left in August 1964 and although I have been to Handsworth and Handsworth Wood a lot in the intervening years, I had not been onto Soho Road since about 1975.
 
Stephen, I was not aware of anyone living in Linwood Road apart from a girl called Cathy who lived about 15 houese down on the left hand side from Soho Rd, but there was a family next door to us, the older one was about four years older than me, a girl, and I think she had a younger brother, but cannot be too sure.

Apart from that, I knew a Stephen Eagle and a David Sparrow (or Sparrie), and I think they lived in Dawson or Whateley. I was at boarding school until April 1962 and then I went straight to work, so did not really have a chance to meet many people. I did eventually find my way to the Riviera and the Ninevah Dancing Studios. I met some peope in the Riviera (or the Riv as we called it), but can't really remember any names. When I think of the people in there perhaps it's a good thing, some of them I would not like my own children to know, no wonder my mother raised Cain over me going there. Oh the folly of youth!
 
Gosh thats nice reply shorty thank you - nice thoughts - I well remember Handsworth Park in its hey day when you met your husband. What a lovely place that was - great memories. I would have been 7 or 8 then. Remember they had a band stand and used to keep the equipment in the base ment in those days. Also the boating lake with boats you could hire, which always seemed to freeze over in the winter - A lovely park. My Dad used to take me to catch tidlers in the stream there too.
 
Just got the map out Stephen, the map is 1913, the Kelly's extract is 1907.

299 - Winter W G & Co undertakers
301 - Cross Guns

... here is Barn Lane.....

303 Sam Firkin, confectioners
305 Globe Parcels Express (Receiving Office)
305 - Darlington newsagent
307 - Darlington ironmongers
309 - Harry and Frank Talbot, grocers

Oddly, on the map there are just four buildings, but Kelly's suggests five, but perhaps the parcel receiving office was just part (or at the back of) another building. Interesting..........
.... here is Boulton Road .......
 
So Stephen, you would remember the house in the park - near Grove Lane gate, where there was (it seemed) a huge room where you could buy and sit and enjoy pop or a sandwich or whatever. I was with my brother (a nasty little sprog of three or four who kicked everyone who spoke to him) on the swings when this group of lads just sort of appeared out of nowhere. They sat on the bank and called out to me (as they did) and just tossed comments around. When I left to take my brother home, somebody called out that they were there every night, which I did not forget. The next week I went back with my friend Carolyn and the rest is history. My husband has never been the same since .............. ha ha.
 
Wow a boarding school shortie ? was that a posh one ?
When my mum live there after she and dad got married it would of been about 1950 or something (massive guess there).
My Uncle used to say that Babington Road was all kippers and curtains :-)

So, Soho Road semed to me to be a very tidy road then and may be a place to be too. Its a pity its gone a little down hill from those earlier years (but hasn't everywhere). Maybe in our minds eye things always seemed better then looking back with fondness (I dont know '!)

Your memories bring back many a picture to my mind tho.
 
Posh? I suppose it was. It was a day school for most pupils, but there were some 'hostels' one was run by a teacher at the school, for those who wished to board. It was Elmfield School, Stourbridge, part of the Rudolph Steiner Foundation. Do you remember the shops called Collis of the Midlands? Radio and television shops. I went to school with Joan and Paul Collis and their other siblings, and some other people who were 'famous' in their area, such as Jack Downing the auctioneer's children. Well known at the time, but not now of course.

Soho Road was very affluent in the early years and indeed a lot of jewellers lived there, including my gt grandfather's sister and her husband - they lived in Whateley Road, then Newcombe and then Farcroft Avenue. by the 1950's it would still have been rather nice, but by 1960 it was very down at heel. Mass immigration had started and of course the houses in Linwood and Murdock, etc, were large (ours had six bedrooms) and a lot of houses were let out to immigrants who sub-let. Shocking the way they were exploited really. They brought their own customs with them and it had started to look very 'messy'.

One house in Linwood had a young lady (I use the word loosely) who had white skin, black dyed hair and red lips, who used to stand outside smoking, and from time to time she would go into the house with a man and then emerge an hour later and then take up the position by the gate again. She must have been about 19 but looked 40. I had never witnessed such things.

I was used to a neat front garden and a garage at the side (I lived near to Birmingham Airport), and here I was living in a place where there were no front gardens to speak of and people had started to not maintain their houses. It was just quite different and by then, slightly down-market. If Handsworth had been kept how it was, and if people could have afforded to maintain large houses rather than leave the area, it may have continued to have a good reputation. It is a great shame that these elegant houses were just ill-used. Look at the houses on Hamstead Road - near to Villa Road. They were magnificent buildings, but by 1960 they were in a terrible state, filthy windows and no proper curtains (bits of net hanging on loose wire). It's a sad indictment of our times, but it has happened everywhere, not just in Handsworth. Despite the dark side, it has a big place in my heart, but I cannot put my finger on why.
 
Stephen there was an accident on the corner of Ninevah Road about 1960 which took out shops on the corner also affected Ninevah Dance Studios.
 
Alan - I have a photo of the corner after the accident. Will try and sort it out and post on here when I have time.

Judy
 
Stephen I missed your comment about Babbington Road - that made me smile, I have to say. I cannot understand why it would be just Babbington and not, say Victoria Road or even Tew Park Road. I would suggest that anyone who could afford rents in the early years (1920's and 1930's) would have possibly been rather pleased with themselves being able to afford to live cheek by jowl with the rich people on the other side of the main road. One of my own family went from Hockely to Piers Road and then to Victoria Road, but eventually they ended up in Erdington on the Ridgeway - exactly opposite the gates of Witton Cemetery. Hockley to Piers and then to Victoria Roads would have been quite a progression. What I would give to spend a day back in 1920, too, to see how Handsworth really was at its best.

Judy, I hope you find the photo, I went to Ninevah Dance Studios for some time, twice a week for ballroom dancing, but that was from 1962, so after the accident.
 
Not been able to find the photo yet but will keep looking. In the meantime here is one that might bring back some memories. I learned to dance at the Nineveh and as well as ballroom dancing lessons which I think were on a Wednesday night, I always went on a Saturday night to meet all my friends, but this would be in 1954 so a lot earlier than you Shortie!

Ninevah Dance Studios.jpg
 
Thx Alan - I might have got the 2 mixed up there in my head. Be good to see a photo Jayell if you have one somewhere. On the corner it used to be a coach place - cant quite remember the name (sorry if its been mentioned before). Nash's ??

Interesting thoughts shortie. I remember that Handsworth with fondess too, my home for many a long year, and I still think of it as such. It was a friendly place and had a good atmosphere. 1960 would have been my very early years and I thought it was still very good for a few years after - but it is interesting to get your take on it too, from your perspective.

I well remember the house and the "grass" tennis courts down Handsworth Park, it was very fine in those days. Also the swimming baths just down the Road there too. They still have the fine front facades of those buildings amalgamated into new houses behind. They had womans and mens entrance signs in the brick work above the 2 entrances but they were mixed during my time.

My wife used to live up in a house in Holly Rd with 3 stories. The top (I think) would have been the servants quarters I guess. And yes these were used by a lot of people for letting which changed the face of things. But it is good to keep our memories and be grateful for them, we were partly lucky and blessed more than we think. Although you do not realise it at the time !

Murdock Road -
My mum used to tell me that there were brass name plaques on the front of those houses and when she walked up there the maids would be polishing them, but I cant say if that was really true or not.There was also a Flights (coaches) up there and we used those for day trips every now and then.
 
Judy - great pic - which direction is it looking at ? - is that the corner there of Ninevah and Soho - where the coach station was ?
 
It is a good picture Judy, but I have to say although I remember Broadmead as a company, I don't remember Ninevah looking like this. My only memories are of the door at the side, loads of stairs go to up and of course, the studio. Was it George and Dorothy Carless in your days?

Stephen, I think the coach place was on the other side of Ninevah Road, but it was almost opposite the dancing studios. I imagine what your mum told you may well be true. Not, I would think, names of people but names of the house, most certainly. I have seen similar kind of things in other places, but not Handsworth. How lovely to have a maid to keep all things sparkly!
 
Going back to the picture Judy, was this building built as a result of the accident? I don't remember it being a new building at all, but I do remember it being very near to the edge of the road. What year is the photo?
 
Mine were at 169 Carolina. I would have thought they might be buried at Witton, but no luck. I think after living in an older type house, to move to a spanking brand new house would have been marvellous for them. They moved from Handsworth in 1927, so The Ridgeway must have been pretty new at the time.
 
Shortie
Going back a few posts, you said Kellys had 5 buildings between the Barn & Boulton roads. That's not quite correct. there are 5 businesses listed, but only 4 "house" numbers. Thr Globe parcels office is the same as Darlingtons. This would have been the same place. Either Darlingtons took in parcels for Globe, or there was a separate counter at the back of the shop(a bit like the PO counters in sub post offices). So the map &kellys do fit together
 
Hi guys ;
if i have my brain in operation was,nt niveha rd facing the broadmead stores at the traffic lights
and the old coach station was there on the oppersite corner facing the street of niveha rd
when they left it was taken over by a cocola ; pepsi whoe aler and stores unit for the pepis company if i remember corrctly
there was always the big lorris of pepses loading and unloading there all day long ;
best wishes astonian ;;;
 
Yes Mike, you are right. It had not dawned on me that the Darlingtons and the parcel place were the same address (Doh!), although I think I said it would probably be part of one of the other buildings. I have found a picture of the buildings we were speaking about, taken from near the front of the Red Lion, but it does not show what the shops were. If I can work out how to post it I will do so, but tomorrow, as I am on the way out tonight.
 
Shortie my relatives lived there in 50/60s then moving to the new estate built in Brookvale Park Road?? Another relative lived just off Gypsy Lane. Witton Cemetery was originally called Jewish Cemetery (you probably knew that).
 
Stephen, it looks like the photo was taken from the Grove Lane junction with Soho Road and shows the Ninevah Dance Studios over the top of Broadmeads which was a television shop. I can remember going across to a little cafe at the start of Grove Lane in the interval on a Saturday night for a cup of tea! I don't remember the coach place I'm afraid but it was a long time ago!

Shortie - I think this photo was taken before the lorry went into Broadmeads. I got it from a friend of mine whoI knew back in those days as he also used to be a regular at the Ninevah on a Saturday night. I haven't been able to find the photo of the damaged shops that I thought I had, so I emailed my friend to ask him about it as I thought he was the one who had sent it to me. This friend went on to become a teacher at the William Murdoch School in Rookery Road. But he has just emailed back to say that although he remembered dashing up from the school to see the damage he didn't remember taking a photo of it. He said the crash happened sometime between 1961 and 1964 and he and a couple of other teachers drove up to see the damage in their lunch hour. However, since I mentioned a film to him, he has started to have doubts and he is going to look through his file just in case his memory is wrong as he says he does remember seeing a photo somewhere of the crashed vehicle leaning up against Broadmeads. Although he thinks he took a 16mm film on the school cine camera and not a still. If he finds a photo I will put it on this thread.

Judy
 
Stephen, I wonder if your wife remembers the Hollygate Cafe in Holly Road? I used to use this quite often and it was opposite the entrance to Handsworth Park in Holly Road.

Judy
 
Hi Carolina - my rellies died in 1949 and 1955 respectively, but their son lived in the house afterwards.

Witton may have been known locally as the Jewish Cemetery but that was not its original name. It has a jewish part, which is probably what they were referring to - that bit is the other side of the road (is it College Road?). Witton was always Witton, it was the first municipal cemetery in Birmingham.
 
Sorry, wifey says she didnt use the cafe Judy.

Interesting, there was 4 shops between Barn Lane and Boulton - I'm guessing they were long and thin then ?
Shortie - pity your old house - not there - had a look on google - but at least we know where it stood - yes the terracotta on those buildings at the top looks fine - its good to see it still there and steeped in our histories.

I think I can position where the dance studios were (tho I cant recall thm during my time).
I think thats where there's a car park (on google). Pls confirm ? or put me right.

Going around that cross roads where the 70 used to turn ... starting with ...
1) The Lloyd's corner, was the site Municiple Bank c1960's, I remember the small black boxes for saving money ? still have mine.
2) Then over to the car park corner today (also - I think - previously dance studios then ?).
3) Then over to the Nash's coaches corner (as I remember it).
4) Then over to the Emporium corner (Grove Ln/Soho) - not sure what was there in my time. (scratches head).

Now - just trying to place where the Elite was further up Soho .... (loved seeing those programme pics earlier).
Looking at todays google street view - there is a building (upper) with date 1912 embossed above it.
There used to be a Foster Brother's shop there too on the left side (used to have those air-chute cash dispensers - discussed earlier).
I'm thinking it was the site of bldg next door (now Soho City) - looking at google street now and the earlier pic.
 
Stephen, I have found a photo in a book - one from the 1950's. Busy today but will try and post it shortly. It shows Allens and the buildings we have been speaking about, but it's not clear what they were at that time. There are four windows at first floor level, so yes, they would have been thin or thinnish. I suspect now that Darlingtons took two and the other shop took two buildings. I remember Darlingtons having two windows and a kind of office which was just a glass partition, I wonder if they still received parcels when I was there?

On the corner of Grove Lane was Nash's coaches, and yes Midland Bank, plus Broadmead and the dancing studios above. The other corner in 1960-64 at least was Dudleys the furniture shop. My husband used to know the daughter of Mr Dudley, so he told me yesterday.

I think the Elite was past the library, opposite the shops, going towards the station, but not far from the library. I have not looked on Google that far down the road, will do it when I am not on a granny run, which I am today.
 
Shortie
The 1962 Kellys lists no 305 as Darlingtons and also
305 British Railways (London Midland Region)Parcels & Goods Receiving& General EnquiryOffice​
305 British 'Railways (WesternRegion) ParcelsReceiving Office
305 Handsworth T r a v e 1 Agency
There is nothing else listed between the two roads ​
​
​
​
 
Re Broadmeads - I didn't really know Soho Road until 1966 so I assume the original corner was demolished after the crash?
I only remember Broadmeads as a modern (single story?) place.

Was very interesting to see the photo of how it used to be!
 
Gosh interesting .. shortie .. Im starting to dream about our little red shop now :-)
All these stories and memories are truly great, be good to see the pic when you have time.

Just checked back to Mike's listing earlier ... the name Mr Heath Jr rings a bell at No 319 (son of Mr Heath ran little red shop c 1960's. I remember there being 1 or 2 big tanks to the right of the door, so you could dispense the blue or pink parafin yourself. He lived at No. 49 Babington and I used to scump his apples sometimes :-) but he never picked them himself - so I'm not feeling guilty.

Judy - milestone mentioned in earlier post - there is one looks very very similar that I remember further up Soho past Regal towards where the Chicken Inn used to be - and I just checked google and its still there :-)
 
Well that's interesting Mike. Baffling, too. I was working opposite in 1962 for six months - I do seem to remember the travel agency, only from the sign. I was only there until 1964 then we left the area. I hope Handsworth Historical can find a photo.
 
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