Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Lucky Eddie on December 09, 2010, 07:55:42 PM
-
In short, twenty years ago a ninety year old mate of mine who was born on one of terraced streets outside the ground, once showed me his birth certificate which he proudly proclaimed to prove that he was from Aston but not a Brummie. As I recall he was recorded as being born in 'Aston within the borough of Aston Manor.'
Now my old man' being from Lozells and knowing a thing or two, and it has to be said happy to make up the rest, reckoned the Hawthornes was purposely built in Birmingham to encourage the wealthy of Handsworth to follow the stripes. This at a time when (as I once read in The Birmingham Metro so it simply must be true ;) ) Handsworth was a larger and more important region than both Ipswich and Exeter.
Both now sadly 'Holte Enders in the sky' I can't ask them but if they're right, Villa Park wasn't built in Birmingham but The Hawthornes was. Does that sound right?
Thank you.
Ed.
-
That's one for Carl Chinn.
-
Sorry nothing to do with your question mate, but it sort of pertains to Villa history. I was talking to our UK sales manager at work today, and she noticed the Villa mug on my desk. Turns out her dad was John Dunn, who played in goal in the 1971 final v Spurs.
-
My birth certificate says Aston within the Borough of Aston Manor but my mother lied as I was actually born in Sparkbrook which was much too close to Small Heath for her liking.
By contrast my wife was born in Hall Green but has Solihull Village on her birth certificate
-
Eddie
I recall going to a party in Handsworth to watch the Albion on TV at a friend of friends house for the 1968 FA Cup final. I went along with some Villa supporting friends from South Birmingham so it was quite a journey in many respects back then. It was a big new house and they were rich Baggies supporters, which caused me some concern then, as they were also Brummies with whom we mingled in the centre of town from time to time, with never a hint of rivalry problem. It was a surprise and shock to me that fellow Brummies could support or get animated about any other team.
WBA were the team to beat then. I recall the Jeff Astle goal as it brought out the distinct reaction in all them other lot and set the tone for the day. It was a good, a great, goal and emphasised that I was in a foreign place with people who got very excited about the fortunes of another team. Funny how the emotional confusion, as much as anything, sticks in one's memory. It was just a goal to me and I was not joyously celebrating. It was the last great high point for them, I suppose. We went on to greater things later but your remark brought the occasion back to mind. Maybe it was the end of an era in some ways?
Later on I recall we were back in central Brum and it was quiet by comparison with the elation enjoyed in Handsworth Wood. It was definitely a big posh place and a great big TV...funny never got an invite again though; but I had seen another bit of the world for sure.
After that, for away matches, it was the smokey upper deck of a Corporation bus from near St Chad's and up Constitution Hill and you were there and back again in darkness to The Windsor to tell the story. .not quite the same level of poshness ever again but always an adventure going to the other extremes of the city. Certainly not the same as going down the Coventry Road which can be very foreign indeed these days, and I certainly never feelt as comfortable in Cattle Road for sure. Someone definitely got the map arseways there,,
I've always thought since that if there was to be ground sharing it would be with WBA..and not the other lot. Maybe we'd get a few converts?
Saturday puts them back in the same frame as the team to beat again..different world now though..very different.
-
The Hawthorns has never been part of Birmingham. The city boundary is said to run through what used to be the Woodman corner but that might be a myth. Perry Barr was in Staffordshire when Villa played there and Villa Park was originally in Aston Manor, which was seperate from Birmingham until 1911.
-
I thought when they played us in the FA Cup final either in 1887 or 1895, West Brom were so confident of victory that they'd arranged for there to be a procession that bypassed Birmingham completely. If they hated Brum so much, surely they wouldn't have built the Hawthorns in the city.
I heard something like this off my brother.
-
I thought when they played us in the FA Cup final either in 1887 or 1895, West Brom were so confident of victory that they'd arranged for there to be a procession that bypassed Birmingham completely. If they hated Brum so much, surely they wouldn't have built the Hawthorns in the city.
I heard something like this off my brother.
1887. They arranged for their train home to go on a circular route that prevented it travelling through Birmingham.
-
I love threads like this. Cheers for posting and the replies.
-
My (soon to be ex-) brother in law is a copper in Lloyd House. He used to be based in Piddock Road nick in Smethwick as well as Soho Rd and told me that the Hawthorns was literally half in Brum and half in W Bromwich and as a result the matchday policing is supplied by two separate police stations. Accordingly, he always says there are two and a half teams in Brum.
In the late 70s and early 80s the walk back along Soho Rd towards Lozells after the game was a nightmare – gangs of Villa fans robbing the shops along the way and the owners tooled up with hockey sticks. Police sirens a blazing and an air of anarchy as the cops could not cope.
Risso, what is John Dunn doing now? He was the first Villa keeper I really remember and my recollection is of him having cracking sideburns and being a dab hand at saving penalties.
-
The first time I went to the Hawthorns I was surprised to see that it was in Sandwell, rather than West Bromwich.
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
-
The first time I went to the Hawthorns I was surprised to see that it was in Sandwell, rather than West Bromwich.
West Brom became part of the newly invented borough of Sandwell in the early seventies if memory serves.
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
I'd agree with that, too.
-
The Hawthorns has never been part of Birmingham. The city boundary is said to run through what used to be the Woodman corner but that might be a myth. Perry Barr was in Staffordshire when Villa played there and Villa Park was originally in Aston Manor, which was seperate from Birmingham until 1911.
Why let facts get in the way of a good story, nothing winds Albion fans up more than telling them they are a Birmingham club.
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
I'd agree with that, too.
Cast Wolverhampton adrift, Iand I would agree also.
-
Why let facts get in the way of a good story, nothing winds Albion fans up more than telling them they are a Birmingham club.
After a similar argument I once convinced a couple Baggies in the pub that the word "Bromwich" was actually derived from the word "Brummagem" and so really there club was West Birmingham. I didn't actually believe what I was saying myself but looking it up on wiki you do get the following....
"Brummagem (and historically also Bromichan, Bremicham and many similar variants, all essentially Bromwich·ham) is the local name for the city of Birmingham, England, and the dialect associated with it"
Still not sure I believe that though.
-
Why let facts get in the way of a good story, nothing winds Albion fans up more than telling them they are a Birmingham club.
After a similar argument I once convinced a couple Baggies in the pub that the word "Bromwich" was actually derived from the word "Brummagem" and so really there club was West Birmingham. I didn't actually believe what I was saying myself but looking it up on wiki you do get the following....
"Brummagem (and historically also Bromichan, Bremicham and many similar variants, all essentially Bromwich·ham) is the local name for the city of Birmingham, England, and the dialect associated with it"
Still not sure I believe that though.
That's because it's not true. It derives from 'village of the broom' and refers to the plant of that name which grew in profusion in the original hamlet from which the town evolved.
-
Why let facts get in the way of a good story, nothing winds Albion fans up more than telling them they are a Birmingham club.
After a similar argument I once convinced a couple Baggies in the pub that the word "Bromwich" was actually derived from the word "Brummagem" and so really there club was West Birmingham. I didn't actually believe what I was saying myself but looking it up on wiki you do get the following....
"Brummagem (and historically also Bromichan, Bremicham and many similar variants, all essentially Bromwich·ham) is the local name for the city of Birmingham, England, and the dialect associated with it"
Still not sure I believe that though.
That's because it's not true. It derives from 'village of the broom' and refers to the plant of that name which grew in profusion in the original hamlet from which the town evolved.
So they're they're all Broomies then!
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
Stop taking the rise please
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
Stop taking the rise please
And that's from a Brummie.
-
Brom wich means the little village of the broom( a yellow flowering plant) allegedly. Birmingham came about in 1196 as a name when the de Bermes(berems, berums) got the trading rights to hold a fairs in the Bull ring and horsefair etc. making it the major centre. Castle Bromwich had been a major denfensive point in the stone age but by Norman times was like West Bromwich a farming centre producing dairy and livestock and supplying grain etc to the growing Birmingham(Home of the de Bermes or Berems). Did the name originate as and come from Brom (or Berum as it may have been pronounced back then)? Try reading a bit of Chaucer in the original(1343-1400) and that was posh Middle English rather than the French that the Normans imposed upon us and spoke at court.
Commonly in local dialect it was known as Bromwich.. The Welsh Road was a main arterial trading route that ran through and fed Bromwich from Neolithic times with attendant cultural influence(probably explains why so many still go to Rhyl and Towyn for hols, sorry). So there you are we are/were the main Bromwich back then until the beginning of Industrial rev started to affect the urban areas shifted. The owners of Aston Manor were major landowners and took in little villages called Bromwich in their charters..it gets a bit strange in middle 1600's when John Dudley did some dirty deeds with Charles I about trading rights but they stuffed themselves over the railways for which Birmingham became main terminal and rather bigger as a result leaving Black Country dependant on canals for some crucial years. The West Bromwich backwater had to wait a while for tracks to be laid from Birmingham to bring them within municipal influence again...anyway the Home of the de Berums being the Big Brum, at the hub of outlying feeder villages, looks like they influenced matters for a long time prior to the invention of municpal boundaries. Then Aston Villa were created...
West Bromwich is best known for production of the legendary Jensen motorcar but that has not been around since the 70's. Used to see a lot round town once. I won't go there.
-
Its a good job Villa are playing just West Bromwich tomorrow. Considering the state of things at the moment, just imagine what would happen if they were playing the whole of Bromwich
-
The Greater Birmingham Act is the answer to the original question:
In 1911 the area of the city was almost trebled by a further extension of its boundaries: under the Greater Birmingham Act the borough of Aston Manor, Erdington and Handsworth Urban Districts, most of King's Norton and Northfield Urban District (i.e. excluding Beoley, Rednal, Rubery, Wythall, and Cofton Hackett), and Yardley Rural District were brought within the city boundaries.
MP Liam Byrne mentioned this at a recent lecture here at the University of Birmingham. IIRC he said that the Act tripled the size of Brum.
See more at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22958
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
Stop taking the rise please
And that's from a Brummie.
Which one?
-
The Hawthorns has never been part of Birmingham. The city boundary is said to run through what used to be the Woodman corner but that might be a myth.
No, this is correct, or at least it was in 1900, I think the boundary has moved a few yards nearer to Handsworth since.
I've got a copy of the 1900 map at home with the boundary running around the back of where the Smethwick End is now and down the side of the East Stand cutting through pretty much exactly where The Woodman used to be.
-
Top thread, thoroughly enjoyable... I don't think you would read this thread on a knuckledraggers thread, the author would be sent packing!
-
The Domesday Book of 1086 records that the village of Estone (meaning the east village or estate, although of what it was east is unknown), was held by Godmund, a Saxon, from William FitzAnsculf, a great lord based at Dudley. The population comprised 30 villeins, 12 bordars and one serf. During the early 13th and 14th centuries Aston Manor, then part of the county of Warwickshire, passed to the de Erdingtons and then the Grimsarwes, whose male line died out in the 15th century. The heiress of the family, Maude, married a wool merchant, John atte Holte, and the Manor stayed in the Holte family for some 400 years. At its peak Aston Manor stretched from Deritend to Water Orton, but the lack of suitable heirs during the late 18th century saw the estates falling into the hands of distant relatives, whose poor business investments led to their being divided and sold up. However, this availability of land helped Aston become a thriving industrial community.
In 1884 Aston Manor was granted its own MP and incorporated as a separate borough in 1903. Eight years later it became part of the city of Birmingham.
-
The first time I went to the Hawthorns I was surprised to see that it was in Sandwell, rather than West Bromwich.
Speaking historically there is no such thing as Sandwell.
-
Its a good job Villa are playing just West Bromwich tomorrow. Considering the state of things at the moment, just imagine what would happen if they were playing the whole of Bromwich
That will never happen as Castle Bromwich will never take side against the Villa and I don't know what Little Bromwich will do!
-
I once saw an old map that had the boundary of Aston extending as far as Small Heath.
-
Close, but I would imagine the border is the River Rea which flows under Digbeth. It is covered mainly from Rea St in Highgate to Deritend although I think opened up around the Custard factory as a 'feature'. There are plans to open it up more which I find forbidding considering the drop there is from the street. Mind you if they filled it up as a kind of moat it would not be such a bad idea, I suppose.
I suspect this is where the spreading fields of Broom that were Brumwich, in the Land of Aston, then swept up and over the the lands and hills that were Hockley, the Dudley Road and Smethwick until they met the Hawthorn hedges that formed the boundaries of west Brumwich controlled by the Lords of old Aston Manor. Where were those prickly hawthorn hedges I wonder?
-
I once saw an old map that had the boundary of Aston extending as far as Small Heath
That's correct.
Simon Inglis mentions it in Villa Park 100 Years
-
The Domesday Book of 1086 records... The population comprised 30 villeins, 12 bordars and one serf.
So even back then we were the biggest team, 30 Villans, 12 Baggies and a Bluenose?
-
The Domesday Book of 1086 records... The population comprised 30 villeins, 12 bordars and one serf.
So even back then we were the biggest team, 30 Villans, 12 Baggies and a Bluenose?
;D Quality!
-
Anywhere north of Worcester and south of Stafford is in Birmingham as far as I'm concerned.
If you live in Redditch it's an east/west divide. The old town in the west is the Black Country while the new town in the east is displaced, white-trash Brum. Interestingly, Small Heath have a base in the new town, West Brom a stronghold in the old and Villa a presence across the town.
-
There is one thing which winds them up more than being told they are a Birmingham club and that is to be told by the natives of Gornal, Cradley and Rowley Regis that they are not proper Black Country.
-
The Domesday Book of 1086 records... The population comprised 30 villeins, 12 bordars and one serf.
So even back then we were the biggest team, 30 Villans, 12 Baggies and a Bluenose?
;D Quality!
Absolutely !!
-
The Domesday Book of 1086 records... The population comprised 30 villeins, 12 bordars and one serf.
So even back then we were the biggest team, 30 Villans, 12 Baggies and a Bluenose?
;D Quality!
Absolutely !!
At that time Aston Manor was five times bigger than Birmingham.
-
I'd just like to add my appreciation for this thread. Top quality!!
-
Anyone got a link for the real size..I am too focussed on landmarks in town..funny how Brummies from suburbs still refer a trip to the centre as 'gooing into town' as opposed to the the shops in Kings Heath, Moseley, Alum Rock or whereever.
If we knew the boundaries maybe we could get as far as the Forest of Arden and include the Bard as a Villein? Certainly there are enough from round there these days. I don't doubt Will would have been a fan...he did his bit in making reference to the game. Of course he'd be a Villa fan; who else is there!
'Love all, trust a few and do harm to no one'.
That's tennis, I think, but I'll find a footie quote from him somewhere.
-
Anyone got a link for the real size..I am too focussed on landmarks in town..funny how Brummies from suburbs still refer a trip to the centre as 'gooing into town' as opposed to the the shops in Kings Heath, Moseley, Alum Rock or whereever.
If we knew the boundaries maybe we could get as far as the Forest of Arden and include the Bard as a Villein? Certainly there are enough from round there these days. I don't doubt Will would have been a fan...he did his bit in making reference to the game. Of course he'd be a Villa fan; who else is there!
'Love all, trust a few and do harm to no one'.
That's tennis, I think, but I'll find a footie quote from him somewhere.
The tree in the middle of Arden Road, Acocks Green, is reputed to mark the centre of the old forest.
-
There you are..I knew he'd be in our neck of the woods.
-
The only football Bardism which comes to mind is "then let us kick against these pricks" from Richard III and obviously proved Shakespeare was one of us and foresaw our games against the Blasted Heath (Scotch play).
-
The oldest tomb in Aston Parish Church is that of Ralph Arden d.1360, the great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of William Shakespeare. He's one of ours no doubt.
-
I think another statue is called for.
-
Black Country Villa fans are a unique bunch, I'm from Blackheath but have an 0121 number so I'm a Brummie to fellow BC Villans who have 01384 numbers, a glory hunter to my Albion colleagues and a turncoat to my Dingle friends. We can't win so tend to have a "Nobody likes us but we don't care" attitude.
-
The only football Bardism which comes to mind is "then let us kick against these pricks" from Richard III and obviously proved Shakespeare was one of us and foresaw our games against the Blasted Heath (Scotch play).
See below signature.
-
Black Country Villa fans are a unique bunch, I'm from Blackheath but have an 0121 number so I'm a Brummie to fellow BC Villans who have 01384 numbers, a glory hunter to my Albion colleagues and a turncoat to my Dingle friends. We can't win so tend to have a "Nobody likes us but we don't care" attitude.
I was the same, but BT never really follow the rules / boundaries of a city, whatever works best for their exchanges. My Albion mate lived just up the road (Upper Gornal) and he had 01902 number which he hated! Silly though....
-
Anyone got a link for the real size..I am too focussed on landmarks in town..funny how Brummies from suburbs still refer a trip to the centre as 'gooing into town' as opposed to the the shops in Kings Heath, Moseley, Alum Rock or whereever.
If we knew the boundaries maybe we could get as far as the Forest of Arden and include the Bard as a Villein? Certainly there are enough from round there these days. I don't doubt Will would have been a fan...he did his bit in making reference to the game. Of course he'd be a Villa fan; who else is there!
'Love all, trust a few and do harm to no one'.
That's tennis, I think, but I'll find a footie quote from him somewhere.
The tree in the middle of Arden Road, Acocks Green, is reputed to mark the centre of the old forest.
My dad's old house was right by that tree.
-
Stretching the boundaries of this thread, but on a similar theme. The City of Manchester Stadium was built very close to where United's old Bank Street ground was before they moved to Old Trafford in 1910.
If you know Eastlands, to the right of where away fans sit, over the road there's a big Asda. If you carry on past Asda and MacDonalds you'll come to the Sportcity Veladrome. Part of the Veladrome car park is over where United's pitch used to be. The row of houses in Bank Street are the same houses that used to overlook the terracing behind the one goal and you can still make out the shape of the ground. On the corner by where Asda is there used to be a big pub called "The United" which stood until at least the 1970s. It has be said though City also started life in the east of Manchester before moving to Maine Road, so it's not exactly the same as Albion or Small Heath setting up a new home in the Villa Leisure Centre car park.
Sorry just thought I'd offload some of my useless information on you all - if you're stuck in traffic getting away from Eastlands over xmas you can bore (or fascinate) the other people in the car with it.
Me, I'm the type of person who can't help but glance across at the supermarket when I drive through Walsall and imagine Fellows Park, or walk the long way round from Arsenal station to the Emirates so I pass old Highbury and have flashbacks of Brian Little's semi final hat-trick in 77 and that magical day in 81.
-
Really enjoyable thread.
-
Last year I got really involved in tracing the Family tree.
Now being from Castle Broom in the fifties we were a mixed bunch of Villeins and surfs. Or being Blue "smurfs". Few Baggies too. For some reason I chose the Villa, wore my V neck claret and blue shirt every time we went to the park. Like all day every day.
Turns out that the Family moved to Aston in the seventeen hundreds with the Father being a Blacksmith. They lived as a Family in Aston until my Dad moved to Castle Brom in the forties. Then still considered part of Aston according to my old man. All Villa Fans since the beginning. As Dave W said the big change of boundary came in 1912. ( I think he said 1911)
Imagine discovering that if I was a nose. In the blood obviously.
-
P.S Thanks Eddie. Brilliant thread.
-
The Hawthorns has never been part of Birmingham. The city boundary is said to run through what used to be the Woodman corner but that might be a myth. Perry Barr was in Staffordshire when Villa played there and Villa Park was originally in Aston Manor, which was seperate from Birmingham until 1911.
Any scans of old maps would be greatly appreciated.
I'm a bit sad when it comes to looking at old maps I'm afraid.
-
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. :-*
-
When I was a boy we were taken round Aston Hall and I recall a big lump of brickwork blown out of one of the walls. Mr Lewis our teacher who actually lived in the house next door to the home of our very own Mr Woodhall, said it was the only evidence remaining of the Civil War in the Manor of Aston.
I later went to Camp Hill Grammar school and they always made much of The Ship pub being on the site of Prince Rupert's camp - hence the name of the place. The only damage done to The Ship Inn was from the monumental punch ups in there every St Patrick's Day.
-
Once again, very enjoyable... keep the historical facts coming!
-
I use the British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/map.aspx?pubid=271) site when l'm doing research.
Here is a map showing the Aston Lower Grounds from 1890 (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55192&sheetid=10074&ox=3401&oy=977&zm=1&czm=1&x=307&y=370)
-
When I was a boy we were taken round Aston Hall and I recall a big lump of brickwork blown out of one of the walls. Mr Lewis our teacher who actually lived in the house next door to the home of our very own Mr Woodhall, said it was the only evidence remaining of the Civil War in the Manor of Aston.
Presumably that would have been made by the same cannon ball that took a chunk out of the balustrade on the staircase that is still evident today. (Along with a small selection of cannon balls)
-
How did I come to live next to a schoolteacher before I was born?
-
Mr Lewis lived in the house next door to the home of our very own Mr Woodhall.
Hmmmm
Mr Lewis lived in the house next door to the one in which you now live. That would be 1947 - 51. You now live in the house which is next door to the house where I used to watch Mr Lewis dig his front garden as I hid quite possibly behind what was then the hedge of the front garden which is now yours.
I can only be wrong if
a) Mr Lewis's house has been demolished since 1951 or
b) If Mr Woodhall has moved
I find it quite interesting that two people sixty years apart who have both made my life very much richer by the work they do should live in neighbouring houses.
-
When I was a boy we were taken round Aston Hall and I recall a big lump of brickwork blown out of one of the walls. Mr Lewis our teacher who actually lived in the house next door to the home of our very own Mr Woodhall, said it was the only evidence remaining of the Civil War in the Manor of Aston.
Presumably that would have been made by the same cannon ball that took a chunk out of the balustrade on the staircase that is still evident today. (Along with a small selection of cannon balls)
Also along with the ghost alarms that have been fitted there. Further proving the existence without any doubt of, oh hold on, wrong thread.
-
We were also Birmingham Base Ball Club?
An excerpt from the preface that is provided below explains how I came to write What about the Villa? and what is referred to within the title:
There were four ingredients that led me to turn the surviving material on Britain’s pro league of 1890 into a full history. The first was my passion for British baseball’s past and the second was my desire to write a book. The third was my supporting of Aston Villa Football Club, which had strong links with one of the four teams in the 1890 league. And the fourth was the relative wealth, by British baseball standards, of source material. Despite being the first season of formal domestic competition, 1890 remains the season to have been recorded most systematically in the British press. It feels like the book was almost waiting patiently for someone with my unusual combination of interests to write it. Although the focus is on the Villa (playing baseball under the official title of Birmingham Base Ball Club), I hope that the work can serve as a history of the league as a whole since their story is intertwined with that of the other three teams.
The 1890 season represents not just the first formal domestic baseball competition in Britain, but also the start of the only professional league to date with a national scope as its remit. The pro league’s victors in 1890 are not, however, recognized in the official list of national champions held by the governing body of baseball in Britain. The 1890 entry in the list includes just Preston North End, recognizing the triumph of Preston’s amateur baseball team in a much smaller-scale, knock-out competition. While other modern publications do exist that refer to the professional circuit in 1890, the season is rarely described in more than a page or two. This explains why the book’s subtitle is Forgotten figures from Britain’s pro baseball league of 1890. In the title, “figures” refers to both the participants and the numerical record.
The book’s primary title – What about the Villa? – is taken from a sketch by the Birmingham-born comedian Jasper Carrott on the typical inane calls from fans of Aston Villa Football Club taken by local radio broadcaster Tony Butler during his Saturday afternoon sports phone-in. I hope that the questions I am asking as a Villa fan are not deemed to be quite as inane.
Baseball GB - Clicky (http://www.baseballgb.co.uk/?p=9949)
-
Sorry Villa dawg but your interesting post about baseball seems to have stunned an excellent and enjoyable thread.
There are a number of Birmingham expressions which relate to local geography. One is to have a face as long as Livery Street. Another is if you fell off Lewis's you would fall into a new suit and to end up in Steelhouse Lane was a reference to promiscuous sex because that was where the VD clinic was located. The clinic was advertised on indestructible black and white enamel plates riveted to the inside of very one of those cast iron pissoirs a wonderful example of which used to stand near the junction of Trinity Road and Witton Lane.
-
I once saw an old map that had the boundary of Aston extending as far as Small Heath
That's correct.
Simon Inglis mentions it in Villa Park 100 Years
Also mentioned here (http://www.allsaintsonline.co.uk/information/history/history.html).
-
Sorry Villa dawg but your interesting post about baseball seems to have stunned an excellent and enjoyable thread.
There are a number of Birmingham expressions which relate to local geography. One is to have a face as long as Livery Street. Another is if you fell off Lewis's you would fall into a new suit and to end up in Steelhouse Lane was a reference to promiscuous sex because that was where the VD clinic was located. The clinic was advertised on indestructible black and white enamel plates riveted to the inside of very one of those cast iron pissoirs a wonderful example of which used to stand near the junction of Trinity Road and Witton Lane.
I remember getting a bad school report in my 1st year at St. Phillips grammar school. My mother said she should have sent me to Gem street. If memory serves it was in Gosta green .
-
Last year I got really involved in tracing the Family tree.
Now being from Castle Broom in the fifties we were a mixed bunch of Villeins and surfs. Or being Blue "smurfs". Few Baggies too. For some reason I chose the Villa, wore my V neck claret and blue shirt every time we went to the park. Like all day every day.
Turns out that the Family moved to Aston in the seventeen hundreds with the Father being a Blacksmith. They lived as a Family in Aston until my Dad moved to Castle Brom in the forties. Then still considered part of Aston according to my old man. All Villa Fans since the beginning. As Dave W said the big change of boundary came in 1912. ( I think he said 1911)
Imagine discovering that if I was a nose. In the blood obviously.
I did my family history (in fact, still am, five years on), and the core thing in all branches of my family was moving from the countryside (Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire) to the Birmingham area in the mid 19th century as industry started to grow. I suspect many of us on here have exactly the same background.
Aston was where all mine ended up, it was certainly a hip and happening place about that time. Well, if you see "hip and happening" as being "a death trap slum, where you work in factories which will almost certainly see you easing into a very early grave".
Villa fans all the way back in my family, which I kind of knew anyway, and my gt gt gt grandfather worked on the Aston Lower Grounds.
One of the things that makes me think I could never give it (it being Villa) up properly is the fact that I know the club is in my family since the very early days, and that no matter how annoyed, disheartened, disappointed and wound up I might get, sat there watching us toil every other week, I'm staring at the same rectangle of grass all my ancestors did, and probably going through exactly the same things they did (as are a dozen or so of my family at the same time).
To give it up would be a bit like letting them down.
-
There are a number of Birmingham expressions which relate to local geography. One is to have a face as long as Livery Street. Another is if you fell off Lewis's you would fall into a new suit and to end up in Steelhouse Lane was a reference to promiscuous sex because that was where the VD clinic was located.
The one I still like to slip into conversation with non Brummies, just to confuse them, is "round the back of Rackhams".
-
never was sure of that one as a kid. there seemed to some confusion if it was prossies, rent boys or it was cosmetic girls earning some extra dosh
-
never was sure of that one as a kid. there seemed to some confusion if it was prossies, rent boys or it was cosmetic girls earning some extra dosh
Definitely Prossies Greg. The Mrs. earnt a fortune in her earlier days.
-
never was sure of that one as a kid. there seemed to some confusion if it was prossies, rent boys or it was cosmetic girls earning some extra dosh
Definitely Prossies Greg. The Mrs. earnt a fortune in her earlier days.
the thing is, its probably the least red lightish place ever. i reckon its an urban myth
-
never was sure of that one as a kid. there seemed to some confusion if it was prossies, rent boys or it was cosmetic girls earning some extra dosh
Definitely Prossies Greg. The Mrs. earnt a fortune in her earlier days.
the thing is, its probably the least red lightish place ever. i reckon its an urban myth
I think it was a pick-up place. The dastardly deeds were done somewhere else.
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
worst spelling of "remember" evoh!
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
worst spelling of "remember" evoh!
Oh, Gregory!
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
Have you ever bumped into my Mrs. Paulie.
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
Have you ever bumped into my Mrs. Paulie.
Does she work on the burger van?
-
yeah but you'd have to at least recognise them as working girls so they'd have to be dressed erm.... a certain way. It's just why would you choose the back of the main store in one of the busiest main roads in Birmingham?? 8)
The back of Rackhams is pretty quiet during the night.
In fact, it would have been even more quiet back then, I imagine.
Have you ever bumped into my Mrs. Paulie.
Does she work on the burger van?
No! Underneath it.
-
Round the back of Rackhams was where you picked up the night bus on Colmore Row..A Streetcar named Desire had yet to come into it back then..
Then if you missed your bus or didn't have the fare I suppose you had to do something..
-
One of the things that makes me think I could never give it (it being Villa) up properly is the fact that I know the club is in my family since the very early days, and that no matter how annoyed, disheartened, disappointed and wound up I might get, sat there watching us toil every other week, I'm staring at the same rectangle of grass all my ancestors did, and probably going through exactly the same things they did (as are a dozen or so of my family at the same time).
To give it up would be a bit like letting them down.
both sides of my family are all Birmingham born and bred, one side Blues(Moms) and the other side Villa(Dads).
My grandfather watched the Villa, my Dad and now me, sadly it looks like I'm the last of this line.
UTV
The Doc
-
It'll be 'round the back of Beckhams' in future if that transfer ever transpires.
-
I remember getting a bad school report in my 1st year at St. Phillips grammar school. My mother said she should have sent me to Gem street. If memory serves it was in Gosta green .
You learn something every day. My late dad, God bless him, went to Hastings Road School but always maintained that Gem Street Tech was the ultimate school for scholars. I always assumed that it was fictional but after 55 years or so I find that is not the case. Next someone will tell me the tooth fairy isn't real.
-
Back in the 70's when I lived in Birmingham, if someone had bought something a bit flash, and you asked them 'what did that cost you', the answer was invariably 'a sore arse round the back of Rackhams'. So clearly lots of stuff going on there.
As an aside my former mother-in-law worked in Rackhams. Not sure what she did for extra money at Christmas.
-
I remember getting a bad school report in my 1st year at St. Phillips grammar school. My mother said she should have sent me to Gem street. If memory serves it was in Gosta green .
You learn something every day. My late dad, God bless him, went to Hastings Road School but always maintained that Gem Street Tech was the ultimate school for scholars. I always assumed that it was fictional but after 55 years or so I find that is not the case. Next someone will tell me the tooth fairy isn't real.
I found this while having a quick search for information re schools in Gem Street:
When contemplating the reasons why the Industrial School was built at Balden Road in Harborne, one might well wonder why the School Boards went to all the trouble to build in an enormous sports ground, and an indoor swimming pool. The answers to this puzzle may be found in the prevailing conditions in homes and in the community generally in 1901. The property - that is the land, was acquired for the purposes of providing good food and exercise for the boys in the main School in Gem Street near where Lancaster Circus is now. The sad fact is that back then when the transport system was chiefly horse drawn, the air pollution was even worse than it is now. Nowadays, in Gosta Green where the new Council offices are being built, there are only asthma inducing exhaust fumes with heavy metals from ill maintained diesel vehicles. Back then, the fumes were considerably more worrying with many boys having skin lesions and a danger of cholera, so the health of the young was at risk. It was very evident that the boys were in danger, and the move was achieved in 1903 “with very few fatalities”. It had become evident that recruits going to the Boer War were lamentably undersized in weight and height, and while this was not universal, it was important to raise the general health of the community. Many schools were being built, and because a standard treatment was “fresh air”, many very large windows were built in to enable them to be flung open wide. This was a consistent feature of the treatment for Pthisis or Consumption, later to be called Tuberculosis. Although there were many philanthropists, it was beginning to become apparent that with education of the poor, a more equitable society was beginning to emerge.
Vital Amines were identified in the 1940s and later called Vitamins. Antibiotics were made during World War II, and their immediate precursors, the Sulphonamides, derived from the dyeing process, were only finally developed and made available in the early years of the same war. So in 1903 to 1923, with the danger of Diphtheria, TB, and Whooping cough, not to mention the risks of Weils disease from a very healthy rat population, a newly built school in the countryside as it was then was a very good idea. To teach furthermore, band music and football, as well as manufacture of uniforms and boots and a cadet force of little soldiers was to give the next generation of boys a better chance of growing up healthy, strong and compliant. A boy born in 1904 would be very likely to stay quite small until he became fully adult. At 15 years of age, he would be very undersized, yet quite a few passed muster in the recruitment process. Even though the men accepted for military service at the beginning of World War I were at least 5’7” in height, by the end of the war, if they were healthy, they could be accepted at 5’6” or 5’5”. The need for a healthy workforce was hardly to be dismissed either.
So a need for health and vigour in the workforce had been demonstrated, the history of the Ansell/Tennal schools was not entirely unusual, and demonstrated the need not only for strong soldiers, and healthy workers, but also removing the boys for the most part from the crime figures, saved a lot of money spent on the Prison service.
http://www.spaghettigazetti.com/2010/11/health-and-efficiency-article-by.html
-
I can see why Gem Street was used as an epithet now:
BIRMINGHAM FREE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, Lichfield Street (1846–50); Gem Street (1850–1902). St. Philip's Ragged Sch. opened 1846 by the Rector of St. Philip's, in a hired workshop (47) at no. 19 Lichfield St.(46) The sch. was undenominational and the committee originally included some dissenters though most of them had withdrawn by 1868. A master and his wife managed the sch. which provided a free meal 3 times a week and training in mending and making clothes and shoes as well as some ordinary teaching.(47) H.M.I. reported 1846 that general management was very good, though standard of education was necessarily low; present: 30 B, 32 G.(1) Later called St. Philip's Free Industrial Sch. Moved 1850 to new building in Gem St. (site given by governors of Grammar Sch.) and renamed Birmingham Free Industrial Sch.(47) Accom. 330 in 3 depts.: a day sch. for B and G over 7 yrs. old; industrial classes for B and G over 7, an asylum for orphaned and deserted children, accom. c. 35. All free except the asylum in which Ł8 a year was charged for each child.(46) The free meals which had been 'an infallible means of procuring a large and regular attendance' were given up through lack of funds 1866. By 1868 it was catering less than before for the very poorest children (see also St. Philip's Ragged Sch., Queen St.).(47) Placed under the Industrial Schools Act in 1868 (10) and later moved to Harborne.(21)