Birmingham of Yesterday
Reminiscences, observations and information about the history of Birmingham, its people and industry.
Egghill Estate – Northfield
Recently described as ‘resembling Beruit’, the Egghill Estate near Frankley Beeches, Northfield, was built during the 1950s/1960s and encompassed many types of poor quality housing from the tower blocks which once lined Lower Beeches Road, to the prefab, concrete housing elsewhere on the estate: demolition and a fresh start was the only economically viable option.
The [...]
Cadbury – Bournville
Amongst the doom and gloom that is usually associated with Birmingham’s ever-shrinking industry it is nice, for once, to report a success story and there are currently none better than that of Cadburys.
Beginning in a small shop in Bull Street in 1824, John Cadbury’s fledgling business began to rapidly expand and by [...]
Alstom (Metropolitan-Cammell Ltd) – Washwood Heath
Opened under the Midland Railway Carriage and Wagon Company, the works at Washwood Heath operated hand in hand with, and eventually absorbed the work of, Joseph Wright & Sons works at Saltley.
Developing stock for the railways of the Empire and the flourishing rail industry at home, the company enjoyed great susccess and [...]
Birmingham Battery & Metal Co – Selly Oak
The Birmingham Battery & Metal Co opened a new rolling mill in Selly Oak in 1871 to equip them for their new venture into rolling and tube production. Incidentally, to dispel a popularly held local misconception, the company did not make ‘batteries’: ‘battery’ was a term for hammering, or battering, ingots [...]
HP Sauce – Aston
Another example of a British institution being sold to a company from abroad and later to be closed is the stalwart of the British breakfast table, HP Sauce of Aston.
The recipe for HP brown sauce was bought from its creator, Nottingham grocer Frederick Gibson Garton, by Edward Samson Moore, owner of the [...]
M&B Cape Hill Brewery – Smethwick
Opening in 1881, Henry Mitchell took over his father’s pub, the Crown Inn in Smethwick, and, as did a large number of landlords during the period, set about constructing a small brewery adjoining the premises. In 1877, Mitchell began constructing the Cape Hill brewery which was completed in 1879 and became a [...]
City Centre Nightlife in the 1980s – An Introduction
Once upon a time in my my youth I could regularly be found gallivanting around the Birmingham pub and club scene in both various states of alcohol-induced abandon and as a member of staff of numerous clubs and bars throughout the 1980s. It is with the hazy memories of this period in mind that I [...]
Granville St – Birmingham’s Lost Rail Terminus
Birmingham’s Cross City Line is a flagship for the region’s railways, carrying as it does, some 8.5 million commuters annually, with 6 trains an hour each way at peak time stopping at all stations within the Centro region from Redditch, through Birmingham New Street, and on to Lichfield Trent Valley.
However, the route South of Birmingham [...]
Austin Rover – Longbridge Demolition
One of the more shocking elements of the demise of Longbridge, social and econimic consequences aside, was the changes it bought about to the landscape of the southern tip of Birmingham. Views that I had known all my life had suddenly, and drastically, changed. For visitors to the City approaching from the South along the [...]
Austin Rover – Longbridge
One of the giants, if not THE giant, of Birmingham industry was that of Austin Rover (under its many guises). It can virtually be guaranteed that anyone like me, growing up in South Birmingham, knew countless people employed at the sprawling factory and, in many cases, had generations of relatives who had [...]
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