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Where is This? 30

Phil

Phil

Gone, but not forgotten.
Another quick one before I head off out onto the moors tomorrow. I've made it easy so it will be solved before I go.

Phil

LeeBankLittleBowSt.jpg
 
I think I've seen that picture before. Wasn't it Little Bow Street, just to the right of Bristol Street Schools? I can remember going to choir rehearsals at the school in the later 1950s, at the time that the Yeung Shing Chinese restaurant started business opposite.
The picture shows how developers put up buildings anywhere at any level before the roads were properly built. When the Street Commissioners got seriously started around 1800 they used their powers to control the exact location of new buildings, quite apart from the naming and numbering of thye property. Along that bit of Bristol Street itself I remember the kerb consisted of about four steps until I left in 1959. The pavement must have been over two feet higher than the road there.
Peter
 
Peter

It is of course Little Bow Street that opened on to Bristol St / The Horsefair. I also remember the area well, as you say the height of the pavements in the area were much higher in that locality.

Phil
 
Peter

heres an interesting shot of the Horse Fair, showing the extra high kerbs and pavement. Its also a good shot of the El Sombrero, I wonder how many remember that place.

Deritend Hight st near Coventry Rd was another location that had similar height pavements,

Phil

CityHorseFairElSombrero1961.jpg
 
I can remember stepped kerbs somewhere when I was young, might have been there.
Is that the old Matthew Boulton college on the left of that photo? I did some of my apprenticeship training there in the sixties before it moved to the new premises in Pershore Road.
 
pbc1947 - The photo of the Sombrero brings back many happy memories of sitting in there and drinking frothy coffee with my friends, and listening to the jukebox which always seemed to be playing the Shelly Mann/Andre Previn version of My Fair Lady, which was the film hit of the time. I had forgotten about the high kerb and pavement until I saw your photo.
 
Oh Yes I HaveMemories Of Those Steps When I Was A Little Whipper Snapper
when Me And My Little Gang Of Friends Used To Roam Around Brum
Especialy On Sundays And Down And Around The Back Of Jamica Row Looking For Dropprd Fruit Or What The Hawkers May Have Missed To Take Back To The Lock Up Down Under Ground In Dean StreetAnd I Know We Walked Up And Down Them Steps
And When I Got Older Our Kid Billy And His Mate Ray ,And Me Often Went To The oLD
Somerbero For Coffee As If It Was Yesterday , Cor, They Was The Days ,
Even When I Started To Work For Divis The Builders In Wrenthan Street Across The Road From The Old Sombre Down The Side Of The Bristol Cinima Before We Started
Our Days Work On TheOld Council Houses We Would Get A Coffee From There
 
I used to drink frothy coffee lunchtimes in a place called La Fiesta near Congreve Street. It was full of young'uns from the various Council Offices all round there.The Gaggia Expresso machine used to sound like a rocket taking off. Their jukebox there seemed to spend most of it's time playing old Jim Reeves "Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone" for the girls or Freddie Cannon's "Way down yonder in New Orleans" for the blokes. Thats if it wasn't being thumped and kicked for not playing anything and refusing to give your 6d back. I went there one evening but the atmosphere was totally different and left a bit sharpish when a gang of kids came bursting in to sort out some others right at the back. Turned out they were from a rival coffee bar somewhere down between New Street and Navigation Street. Think it was called the El Toro.
 
The extra high kerbs usually denote they are the remains of an old 'holloway'. Do you remember the one at Camp Hill opposite the old Bordesley Palace?
 
This is a snap outside ex boxer Joe Fox's sweet shop, on the High St at Deritend showing the raised kerbs there just before the Dolls Club. If I remember correctly nearby in Sandy Lane at the rear of The Ship Hotel the kerbs there dropped to a lower level than the road.

Phil

BordesleyHighStJoeFoxSweetShop.jpg
 
I remember those kerbs in Deritend Phil, and also the kerbs that dropped below road level between Milk Street and Floodgate street in Digbeth on the way up to Deritend. There was a second hand record shop there and later I think Lincoln Street Motors had a small showroom there on the same site. Nice pic, Nice van!
Mike
 
Wasn't it done to fascilitate alighting from a coach or Hansom Cab?
Blimey - that sounded posh, dain't it?
 
Bin dahn souf for a coupla days Wend., musta rubbed orf.
Promise not to do it again, I broke out in a cold sweat just thinking of it.
 
Charlie said:
Wasn't it done to fascilitate alighting from a coach or Hansom Cab?
Blimey - that sounded posh, dain't it?
Click to expand...

Charlie

How would one avail themself of this facility? Surely the Hansom Cab would have to stop at quite some distance from the top step of the kerb. Leaving anyone who wished to gain access the aforementioned means of transport with no other option than the prospect of a flying leap from pavement to cab.

Phil
 
Dain't they 'ave a step what kind of folded down so as yer cud step straight on to the pavement Phil? (There, that's better).
I heard of something like this when we visited Dudmaston Hall in Shrops.
But maybe not, it's passed my bedtime (4.00pm)
 
Charlie

You have got me beat, you may be right for all I know. I'm getting on a bit now but I wasn't around when they used Hansom Cabs. Much as I might wish I was. I can just see me now in my top hat and my wife in her crinoline dress.

Phil
 
Having left in 1958, my memory of inner Birmingham geography has regretfully gone, but I do remember the coffee bar El Sombrero, c. '56/57, not far from the Town Hall.
 
Hi Tony most of the geography has gone even from ten years ago, but its strange once you start going around the city it all comes back. You soon find your way around.
 
Hi tony

Are you sure you've got the right café, El Sombrero was a tidy gimp from the Town Hall. Are you sure you are not thinking of The Las Vegas in Summer Row at the back of Chamberlain Square it was only a few moments walk.

Phil

LadywoodSummerRow1960.jpg
 
Hi Phil,

Thanks for making my memory jog a bit more. Yes, I seem to recall now that El Sombrero was somewhere near the start of the Bristol Road. Would that be right?

I mentioned the Town Hall, because we used to end up at the El Sombrero after promenade concerts at the TH. We were fitter then so it didn't seem that far on foot. It was 1956/57.

The photos you put on this thread are really interesting. I recognise many of the street and building names, but have difficulty remembering their exact location. Even so, the photos and comments bring back happy memories.

Tony
 
Hi Wendy,

I've just discovered this site and it's fascinating.

I guess we all become nostalgic as we get older, and this thread opens a totally new landscape for reconstructing my happy early days in the great city.

Thanks for your encouragement.

Tony
 
Tony

Here is a photo of the Sombrero in the Horse Fair, taken in July 1961.

Judy
 
Last edited:
tonydunning said:
Hi Phil,

Thanks for making my memory jog a bit more. Yes, I seem to recall now that El Sombrero was somewhere near the start of the Bristol Road. Would that be right?

I mentioned the Town Hall, because we used to end up at the El Sombrero after promenade concerts at the TH. We were fitter then so it didn't seem that far on foot. It was 1956/57.

The photos you put on this thread are really interesting. I recognise many of the street and building names, but have difficulty remembering their exact location. Even so, the photos and comments bring back happy memories.

Tony
Click to expand...

Hi Tony

I didn't think it was much of a possibility of it being the Las Vegas, because the little I know of it was, it was used as a hang out for the Beatnik's (thats a word I had nearly forgotten) that used to hang about in Chamberlain Square in the early sixties.

Phil
 
I'm sure lunchtimes I used to go to a coffee bar called the La Fiesta on the left down Summer Row when I worked in Congreve Street 1959 - 1962. Didn't seem as far down the street as the Las Vegas looks to be. Did I imagime it and it was the Las Vegas or can anyone else recall the La Fiesta. There was a barbers shop near it where I had my hair first cut to get rid of the parting I grew up with. My mum said I looked like a Teddy boy the first time she saw it.
 
yes i remember el sombrero, fantastic !! not far from there does anyone remember bradshores in cregroe st, and has anyone got a pic of the shop ??
 
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