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white swan station road solihull

Astoness

TRUE BRUMMIE MODERATOR
Staff member
wonder if anyone can help please...there is a weatherspoons pub on station road solihull and i was wondering if it was named after a previous white swan that was on or near that site

thanks

lyn
 
There were no pubs in that block when they were built as far as I can remember. So if it was a White Swan we are going back quite a while.
 
Just checked my maps for 1904, 1937 and 1954 and there are houses on that section of Station Road. Can't see a "Swan connection"
 
Just checked my maps for 1904, 1937 and 1954 and there are houses on that section of Station Road. Can't see a "Swan connection"

thanks jan...as you say if there was a white swan pub there it must go back quite a few years
 
I don't remember the houses but do remember those shops being new - probably a few years old if built end of 50s and early 60s when there was lots of building work in Solihull. When Mell Square was built.
 
found this photo cant be certain but it looks like the line of shops in this photo is where the weatherspoons white swan is now and the original coaching house on the opposite corner..

s-l1600.jpgthumbnail (8).png
 
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Not sure Lyn. I think the pub would be in the far right distance beyond Silhill House. Those shops would be at the start of the High Street and on the opposite side of the road to where the pub is.
In the Wetherspoons text it says the house had gardens extending down Poplar Road. I will try to mark on maps when I put laptop on.
Also their photo (inset in your post) isn't of Silhill House as St Alphege Church is in the background and those buildings are still there - opposite end of High Street.
You might want to point them in the direction of your photo lol. (They do ask for any info).
 
I have searched my Solihull History books and come up with these photos.

The book is: Solihull A Pictorial History by Sue Bates (one time Local Studies Librarian at Solihull Library). The photos are from a variety of sources. (This one is Society of Arts)
Silhill House.jpg
(This photo is the author' own}
Site of Silhill House.jpg

The Parade shops are still there on the corner of Poplar Road and fix the site of Silhill House (according to the photo's caption)
 
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This view s taken from St Alphege tower and looks along the High Street towards Silhill House. (From Joiner collection at Solihull Library).
Aerial view.jpg
 
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I tried to find a map but to my surprise Silhill House doesn't seem to be named on any maps.
I used this 1888 map to annotate and show where I believe Silhill House was, where the pub is and where the photos in Lyn's post # 9 were taken (roughly).
Red ring marks Silhill House. Red bar marks the current pub. Green arrow is direction of the main photo and blue arrow is directon of smaller photo.Annotated map.JPG
 
If I have read everything correctly then I should add: it looks as if there was an Inn on the site referenced as far back as 16th century. A building was erected as the Swan in the 18th century. By 1828 this building had become a private house called Silhill House. It was later knocked down and the shops known as Solihull Parade were erected in its place. They are still there.
 
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Hello Janice, thanks for your photos and all the information. It helped me a lot in researching early dog pedigrees and their Breeders/owners.

Henry Harvey Chattock, son of Thomas (7.2.1774-22.7.1844) and Jane (1786-1867) Chattock, nee Prince, and brother of Mary Jane (1821-1873), Frances Catherine (1819-1899), Rebecca Elinor (1826-1888) and Richard Samuel Chattock (1825-1906) was the owner of the wavy retriever "Chattocks Cato" in 1861 and is one of the earliest known owners of an ancestor of todays Labrador breed.


Henry Harvey Chattock (born in 1820), was a solicitor as his father and his brother and lived in Silhill House until his death in November 1898. His brother Richard built "Northmede" in Soliull about 1850/1860 for his family.

Sister Mary Jane married the renowned physician Edmund Alexander Parkes in 1850 and died in 1873 without children.

Henry Harvey, Rebecca Elinor and Frances Catherine seem to have stayed unmarried and without children.
Edward Lears friend Frances Catherine Chattock, a composer of hymns, sang his nonsense songs ‘wonderfully well’ in Lear’s opinion, and she self-published her setting of ‘The Two Old Bachelors’ in 1879.

Brother Richard Samuel had at lot of children and lived with them at 6 Addamson Rd, South Hampstead in 1874 while Northmede was rented out:
Arthur Prince (14 August 1860 – 1 July 1934) , Katherine Maud (1862- 21.12.1946), Richard Alexander (1865-1936), Edward Spencer (1867-1960), Helen Mary (1869-1962), Beatrice Fanny (1872-1957) and Hugh Percival, (1870- after 1947).
Hugh Percival lived at Blythe Cottage in Coleshill in 1924 and moved to Budleich Stalterton/Devon with his 2nd wife Nellie Pratchett Willmot, where his siter Katherine Maud died in 1946.
He might have been the heir of Silhill House as he sold his parents house Northmede around the mid 20ies or earlier.

I hope some of you find the information about this one branch of the Chattock family of SolihullI helpful or interesting,

regrads from Luebeck/Germany,

Ulf
 
Thanks. Always fascinating when someone else is able to add to our research.
Love the dog connection and, of course, Crufts was held last weekend only a few miles up the road.
 
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