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What happened to all the rubble?

Radiorails

Radiorails

master brummie
Looking at this Forum it soon becomes very obvious that Birmingham has spent the last 150 years tearing down and rebuilding what is now its inner city areas. It was helped to a fair degree by the Luftwaffe during WW2.

The thought that crosses my mind is where did they put all the rubble? There must have been millions of tons of it over that long period of time. I realize that bomb craters may have absorbed some of it but it seems to me that the larger percentage of structure demolition took place after WW2. ;)
 
Well a fair portion went to help raise the level of my roguish Uncle's fields at Earlswood so they were less waterlogged. Most went in the foundations of road and new build sites I assume after being crushed.
 
When I was a younger than now lorry driver, I worked for a demolition company. I was involved in the Aston, Newtown and Hockley clearance amongst other projects and we used to deliver the hardcore to most roadbuilding sites of which there were plenty. Thousands of tons were used under the runway extension at Birmingham airport and there were several crunchers dotted around the midlands. What I mean when I refer to a 'cruncher' is a large machine with a man or men filling bucket-like pockets on a conveyer belt. The belt travels upwards at an angle and when the buckets reach the top, the belt of course starts to come down again. As they go from traveling up, to traveling down the buckets empty their contents into a large hopper. The rubble is then gravity-fed into a set of rollers that crunch and crush it to a finer sort of hardcore. The machine could be adjusted to make the crumbs as it were a desired size depending on what they were to be used for. Countless thousands of tons of demolished houses were fed through these machines. Better quality used house-bricks would be dressed or cleaned up by a man with man axe or chopper and would be sold from the yard by the hundred or the thousand, depending on what they were for.
 
Thanks for the info.Stitch.So the rubble was cleared from site and transported to a yard where it was crushed,and then taken to where it was required,and not the nearest place.
Everytime I travel down the Aston Expressway,I think my old house and school U.T.S.are unerneath me,but that wouldn't be the case it could be anywhere.:cry:
 
Hello Ray, I would say most of it was used in Birmingham whilst I was on the tipper lorry job and don't forget all the cellars were back-filled with hardcore as well. There is every chance that you have travelled over the remains of your old house regularly. Another site that used a large of hardcore was the Primrose Hill Estate in Kings Norton.
 

Reminds me of the part in Porridge :), what happend to all the soil from the escape tunnel :)


Answer :):):) :):) they dug a second one:rolleyes:
 
I had forgotten about the cellars,and everyone had one in Aston,they would have taken a lot of rubble.Each cellar could have taken the the rubble that the house above left behind.That would have made it level again.
 
Hello again Ray, we'll have to stop meeting this. A group of men would start work a few days prior to us moving onto the site. To start at the begining, I passed my test on a Co-op milk float and a short while later I got a job driving a J.4 pick-up. I always wanted to be a lorry driver, I delivered slabs, sand, cement and used building materials to households all around Acocks Green and Olton. After a few weeks I went onto a seven and half ton tipper for the same firm, then an eight wheeler. Back to the story, this first group of workers would go into the loft area and push all the slates/tiles off the roofs with pick handles , They would be left were they landed unles the firm had an order for some, or wanted some for stock in the yard. There were no proper barriers or men keeping watch and I never heard of anyone getting one on the head. These men would then remove all the roof timbers which would be stacked neatly if in good condition or burned on site if wood wormy. The glass was smashed out of the upstairs windows and the frames removed and burned. The bedroom ceilings were smashed out with shovels or spades, then the brickwork was pushed by the men inside so it cracked and fell outside the building down to bedroom floor level. The floor timbers were removed and either burned or saved then the ceilings and timbers, downstairs windows and frames, all the doors then the brickwork again. Now there would be a cluster of fireplaces and chimneys. A wire rope was put around them, low down and attatched to an eye on the back of a Drott Super Shovel which was an Italian catapillar machine. It would drive forward slowly until the wire rope was tight, then accelerate and as the tracks ripped up the ground, the wire rope cut the brickwork like a cheesecutter and the whole lot would come down smashing the downstairs floors into the cellar. The hardcore was loaded and delivered and each evening whatever was wanted was loaded and taken back to the yard. Any timber sticking up from where the cellar had been was pulled out with the machine as the site was levelled off. After a while I then went onto eight wheeler tanker, eight wheeler and trailer and artic work for Road Services Caledonian. Because I was already driving the big ones I got my HGV all types/groups with what was known as 'grandad rights'. To go off thread a little, whilst on the Scotttish firm I worked from the Tysely depot but spent more than one Burns or Hogmanay nights in the Kelvin Hall Glasgow. I have never been a drinker but they were still fabulous times for me.
 
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Think I heard that a lot of the old blue paving bricks from town were buried on 'the big tip' for those who dont know, thats roughly between Garrison La, and Adderley Park. And were actually re claimed and re used in in town somewhere during the 90s.

Anybody else heard this ?

There were blue paving bricks everywhere when I was a kid, up entrys (courts to some of you ) and in yards etc. Nothing new about the block paving of the 80s.
 
A very good description of the whole process Stitch...could almost smell the old plaster and mortar..:)
 
What a great response. Within a couple of hours the posed question seems to have been well answered. I guess other folks were involved in demolition work and possibly they may tell us what happened to the better quality stone or other re-saleable items. But this may have been before the interest in 're-cycling'.

I hope no 'elf and safety wallahs have read Stitchers description of the demolition mens day! They will have dies of apoplexy! :D

The heavy duty industrial grade blue blocks were all over the place I recall. Railways have used them on platfoms in the past but most have been covered in tarmacadam. Sadly the platform at the heritage railway where I am a volunteer has been so treated.

Blue blocks are to be seen in Devon but those who have holidayed here will recall the yellow versions so common here. The colors are, of course, related to the distances away from the nearest suitable clay.
 
As a one time demolition contractor, I can tell that during the clearance schemes very little of the houses that were cleared went to tips (landfill sites). The amount of money paid for each house to be demolished demonstrates this. You could be paid as little as a few hundred pounds for clearing a whole street. You had to make your profit on the hard-core and recyclable materials, which back then was not hard to do. As a rule not much of the hard core (not the good stuff anyway) went for backfill in the cellars just mainly the rubbish.

Phil
 
I have read this thread with interest, my friends in Saltley had cellars, so what did they do with the soil they excavated to form the cellars?
 
The top soil would be set aside for gardens, I should think,and the subsoil could have been carted away by barge,you are always close to a canal in Brum.
In the 19th century household rubbish was transported by barge.
 
Some of the rubbish was used to make a bank by the canal at Hopwood. I know this because people sometimes dig there for the old bottles.
 
Whilst searching for Lyn's new pictures of Cowper street, I came across this old thread. Very interesting description by Sticher of what happened to all the rubble during the demolition craze. Imagine our descendants reading this a hundred years from now (which is why all these contributions need to be saved, but that's another story)
Kevin
 
Stitcher is right. A few years ago, New John St was widened, and the grass banks excavated, this revealed row upon row of rubble filled cellars, some with furniture in! I've recently been down to Longbridge for the first time in a decade. I drove around these roads every day for years, answering emergency calls to homes and shops, businesses and streets, and I gained an encyclopaedia like knowledge of the area. By the time I got to Cofton Park, Low Hill Ln, I was in tears. So much gone, lost to corporate greed. Huge fields of rubble where once Brummies built British cars, (crap maybe - Austin 1100?) but British.In a few years time, there will be a generation who have never known the 'Rover'.
 
pete i can remember seeing those rows of cellars when njsw was widened..wish i had taken more notice of them now...

lyn
 
Lyn,
Working out of Henrietta St, this was a common run up to Dudley Rd Hospital. esp from the Expressway, so I had lots of time to study this unearthed treasure. Likewise the old Lucas Factory site nearby, and roads in what is now the Waterlinks area. I've said it before, maybe these homes weren't the best, but they gave the areas a character and community now missing.
 
pete ive lost count now of how many times i have said exactly the same thing...if memory serves me right i think it would have been round about the middle 80s when njsw was widened but i was too busy having the children to take much notice..just another regret and i think this is why i now have my eyes open to whats happening to our buildings and always have a camera in my bag...

lyn
 
apbco_brick.jpg

https://2yearsatmargaretstreet.wordpress.com/tag/adderley-park-brickworks/
 
Remember the pub in factoy road lyn, when you were distrubuting blue bricks from the boot of David Fowlers car. It looked like we were about to start a riot. lol
 
hi rob...lol....yes those were the blue bricks from the winfield brass co that was on the site of the new library..i have a couple from chances glass...1 from the beehive pub soho hill...2 from the birmingham arms pub dudley road and 1 from the king edward lichfield road:D some may say what is a woman of my age doing going around collecting old bricks but the thing is as with the buildings once they are gone they are gone;) my next mission is to get one from the fox and grapes park st wont be long before thats demolished

lyn
 
Hi mike
I was wondering whether or not have you got any mapping of the old colmore row leading down to steel house lane
or could you tell me whether or not old steel house lane was known as some think else prior to the 1930,s
i do know that the colmore family gave the row there name ,as it was previously known as ann street
And its there fore thats why i am asking did that contunue further down to the steel house lane police station
And it,s therefore the reason i am asking was becausein the very early years of birmingham
i know there was what was known as the gun quarter and i know the proofing house as well
but i can recall from the top end of steel house lane walking down on the opersite side of the station directly there was a batch of little tiny shops and i mean tiny and they was gun smiths and makers , and it was around the very early years of i think about 1952/3
that two or three police officiers was caught trying to break into one of the gun shops
during there night shift they was seen and arrested this was reported in the sunday mercury in that period
and it was a saturday night early sunday morning and i am trying to find those pictures of the very tiny little shops
i do know they excisted because i walked down there and looking to they shop windows
where the mail office is in colmore row there was a bend in the road and there used to afew gun shop sellers there
and as you came around there was the little work shop windows they resembaled dolls house
and i do know colmore row was named previuosly as Ann street
I would really appreciate if you could find out if it was known as ann street opersterite the station
the pub next door to the steel house lane was there during that period
in those days the mail office was built there then nor was LLoyed house only that big insurance compay building was there
many thanks Alan, Astonian,,,,
 
I remember my dad telling me that he worked on the demolition of bomb damaged Birmingham following his demob in 1946.

He worked for his brother in law Tom Ferran and I think they were called “Cannon Hill Demolition” I know they lived in Willows Road. He told me that they filled in the cellars and bomb craters with anything and everything that was considered unusable including old brass bedsteads, old fireplaces etc. It broke his heart, but he said that people didn’t want them at that time and they didn’t have time to sort out the good from the bad as there was so much work.

I also remember mum telling me that she used to take his lunch to him (pushing my sister in her pram) when he was working on the demolition of part of Lucas. I don’t know which Lucas she meant as I didn’t ask the questions when I should have, but they were living in Winson Green then so it must have been within walking distance, that said she used to walk into the centre of Brum with the pram as I’m sure lots of other people did.
 
Alan
Below is a map c 1839 showing that Steelhouse lane was always been up to Snow hill, with Monmouth St in front of the station and Ann St at the far end of what is now Colmore Row.
Lyn
There are lots of others interested. Do not take any notice of those who mock. See. https://britishbricksoc.co.uk/ and https://www.internationalbrickcollectorsassociation.com/. the first has copies online of their newslatters, which look quite interesting

map c 1839 showing steelhouse lane, monmouth st, colmore row and Ann st.jpg
 
Hi mike and bewdley
firstly mike thanks for the map great help and secondly bewdley winson green is only twenty minutes from the city centre
eithher walk down the lodge road and up warstone lane you are there at lucas,s
and onto what in those days was classed as as part of the city centre but yes there was different parts of lucas,s factory
around that neck of the area
then it depends which part or side of winson green they was living in
It could have been down dudley road straight into the city centre and across to get to lucas,s
Bewdley on the subject of willows road in those old houses with the cellars willows road was known for lodging houses
especialy for the people the irish comunitity and of course you mentionioned the brass beds its sad really
but do you know they are in great demand those old beds with the brasses and expensive to buy now you are speaking of hundreds of pounds ,they are like searching for gold dust my wife and myself searched i and low across the country for one
we actualy tracked one down in the outskirts of bromyard worc at an old church
it apparently was bought by an personalality person whom traveled the world and took it around the globe
It cost us afew bob but well worth it ,
Lynn on the subject of old bricks its a great hobbie , and i just want to say that my family of the jelfs coffee house
As you know are my family tree that and that my great grand father mr william jelf in the 1800
built there home and shop in tyburn road holly lane erdington and for generations
they lived and operated there shop coffee house and when it was built he had a special brick placed in the very first brick
which came from the 1800 brick makers in cow honeybourne and brought it to birmingham
it was there for generations and right up until the 1980 when the last person of the family died wich was the only female
aunty ivy died and it was sold off and demolished but before they demoed the shop the
the birmingham department came and removed that brick and wrapped it up a paper to preserve it
and taken it some where i never knew about it until i was informed by a wittness christ knows where the council keep these old historic works , do you know where they store these things yes i to have a couple of old blue bricks they are gemms
best wishes Alan,, Astonian..
 
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