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Summer Lane
- Thread starter Astoness
- Start date
Phil
Gone, but not forgotten.
One you allow vegetation to start growing on your building it can sound the death knell of the building, it gets between the courses and forces the brickwork apart. Sometimes on buildings with climbing ivy it is only the ivy holding it together because the ivy root (tentacles) has pushed all the mortar out.
john knight
signman
I knew it when the wall was blue with white lettering, about 1956-8/
john knight
signman
Only the sign outside Lyn.
thanks phil i have heard this before so i think we have to fear for the building now...given its location i cant really see what it could be used for...i have a feeling its no longer a restaurant but could be wrong and dont forget only up the road there is the lord clifden which is going great guns and the newly refurbed church tavern which is also doing well i believe
lyn
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Hope you do not mind me butting in but I used to own the newsagent shop opposite the sale factory in the 70s. David sale was one of the directors and frank ( can t remember surname )run the place.
frank then opened a medal shop in constitution hill.
many happy years there
frank then opened a medal shop in constitution hill.
many happy years there
Hi lyn
thats the one. I sold it to a guy named Clive who owned it until it was demolished.
i did live above the place for a few years. Very interesting building there was a cellar full of old chemist bottles and assorted stuff. A lady who lived in henrietta street told me it used to be an apothecary come chemist on the name of bishop. My ex still has a few of the bottles and a full otter of beer from the 50s I think.
col
thats the one. I sold it to a guy named Clive who owned it until it was demolished.
i did live above the place for a few years. Very interesting building there was a cellar full of old chemist bottles and assorted stuff. A lady who lived in henrietta street told me it used to be an apothecary come chemist on the name of bishop. My ex still has a few of the bottles and a full otter of beer from the 50s I think.
col
hi col how wonderful its a shame you didnt keep all of the old chemists bottles but at least you still have a few..the full otter of beer sounds interesting although i dont think i would like to drink it now lol...if you have any old photos of the lane we would love to see them..strangly enough i have an address for an old rellie of mine who lived above a chemists shop in summer lane..no number given but it could well have been this one...do you remember the salutation pub just on the corner?
all the best
lyn
all the best
lyn
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OuterCircleBus
master brummie
I called the HB Sale building the "Flatiron" until I got to find out more about it. It is probably a beautiful building in the wrong place!
The plants around the top are probably buddleia, the curse of old buildings, especially on railway structures where it can be difficult to get at. There was a similar growth near the top of the tower of the Central Hall in Corporation Street. This article about buddleia is interesting. https://bbc.in/1n5inRV
The plants around the top are probably buddleia, the curse of old buildings, especially on railway structures where it can be difficult to get at. There was a similar growth near the top of the tower of the Central Hall in Corporation Street. This article about buddleia is interesting. https://bbc.in/1n5inRV
thanks col..its great to talk to folk who once lived on the lane....not sure if you have found them yet but i have posted a photo of every pub that was on summer lane in the 60s....you will find them under the pubs of summer lane thread...any problems finding it just let me know
lyn
lyn
Ray Barrett
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN R.I.P.
See the palm trees swaying way down Summer Lane.
Every Saturday night there's a jubilation you can see them dancing in the Salutation'
There ain't no Snow on Snow Hill and there's no need to catch a train.
Every Saturday night if the weather is right,it's Summer in Summer lane.....My mom learn't it from the bloke who wrote it,In Brearly St.
There are more verses but I don't remember them.
Every Saturday night there's a jubilation you can see them dancing in the Salutation'
There ain't no Snow on Snow Hill and there's no need to catch a train.
Every Saturday night if the weather is right,it's Summer in Summer lane.....My mom learn't it from the bloke who wrote it,In Brearly St.
There are more verses but I don't remember them.
As some photos were sadly lost from this thread, I thought it'd be useful to see if we could find some of those lost images and add any others of interest. Also, early on in the thread, Astoness noted a general shortage of Summer Lane images. So maybe it's a good time to try to address these two problems. Here's a lovely image from the Shoothill collection showing the corner of Summer Lane. Not sure which corner (?) but what an interesting house. A million miles away from the images I've seen of the back-to-back houses which were earmarked for demolition along Summer Lane . There's a hotel next door (right) and a sign on the chimney stack announcing 'Beds'. I wonder if this had any connection with the Settlement building identified earlier in the thread? Viv.
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Just Google travelled along Summer Lane and the morgue found and photographed by Astoness in this link https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=24448&highlight=Summer+lane+morgue
is still there. Viv.
is still there. Viv.
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From at least 1829 till 1868 no 381 was the home of Richard Turley, japanner & paper mache manufacturer. by 1872 it was the home of Jabez Jackson , surgeon, and it seems to have been occupied by surgeons from then on. The model lodging house (no 376) was, I think, built around 1872, as the name appears then, and before then no 5u76 was the Sydenham Medical School (associated with the General hospital), and 377-380 were separately occupied
Thanks Janice and Mike. The link then between the corner house and the hospital seems to have become firmly established when the hospital went through its two later extensions mid-19th century to expand the number of beds it could provide. (Summary: Hospital built 1779, wings added 1790, extended 1857 and 1880). The morgue is just across the street too. All fits together. And I therefore wondered what the building is next to the former hospital, and whether it was at one time part of the hospital. (See pics below. Modern day photo shows the blue plaque where the hospital stood and the older building next to it.)
The Model Lodging House sounds interesting too. It's title suggests it was a good example of a particular type of lodging house.
Viv.
The Model Lodging House sounds interesting too. It's title suggests it was a good example of a particular type of lodging house.
Viv.
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Lovely drawing Carolina. That must be post-1790 as the two wings have been added. Looks like a nice setting for a hospital with open grounds around it, although that could be artistic licence as I think one contemporary historian thought it was a dirty and unsuitable place for a hospital. Viv.
A little info here for Model Lodging House - perhaps a workhouse
https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Birmingham/
https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Birmingham/
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Thanks Carolina. I think it's a sad fact that people who ended up in these places were seen as wholly responsible for their situation. This is an interesting article too on the subject of lodgings in the a Town and mentions Model hotels. According to the article Frederick Engels was disparaging about the general state of Birmingham's lodging houses in the 1840s and a report of their state eventually put to shame the Commissioners of the Town. The Council which succeeded the Commissioners brought in regulations and bye-laws. So perhaps the Summer Lane hotel was an example of this. Here's the article. Viv.
https://birminghamhistoryblog.wordp...-of-common-lodging-houses-in-birmingham-1852/
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Yes I agree it's very interesting Carolina. Felt myself slightly torn by the philosophy of this institution. It's good that the needs of the children were looked after (baths, educational, spiritual etc) but the labours they undertook seem terribly challenging. I'm assuming as 'infants' they'd have been about aged 4 - 8. Not sure I can visualise a 4/5 year old making lace and pins. But maybe they had an apprenticeship-type process where the little ones took on very basic jobs and progressed to the 8 year olds doing the more technical stuff. The driving force certainly would have been the profit they put back into the parish. But as it lasted about 50/60 years years maybe it helped some of those youngsters to get a good start in life. It may, of course, have been experimental or a new model, like the Model Hotel with its regulations to improve the situation of the less fortunate members of society. Whatever the driving force, it's interesting that these activities were all happening in and around Summer Lane. Viv.
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The Shoothill site photos also reveal how the decline in housing conditions around the Summer Lane area were addressed by the Council. First we see the demolition of the back of #290 - #291 Summer Lane. Then the photo in the following post shows what could have been achieved - a reconditioned back-to-back row of houses at the back of #294 Summer Lane. But expect this option was unpopular with the Council as it wouldn't have satisfied the volume of demand for sanitary and healthy homes. Viv.
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