This week’s pictures from the past feature is specially selected for reader Steve Hickman, who’s sent me a fascinating enquiry about Stonnall, in respose to which I’m currently putting together an old mapping post about changes to the area. Steve had this to say:
My name is Steve Hickman and I am doing a bit of digging into the family past. I was born in Stonnall in the 50’s. I was actually born at Prospect House which is the old house at the bottom of Castle Hill. My Gran used to live in one of the two cottages that used to be on the small triangle on the opposite side of the Chester road. They were the Platt Family.
My Grandad used to have a coal merchants yard in Brownhills High Street. ‘Thomas Platt Bros’. I belive it was by ‘Roberts Painters and Decorators’ just up from the Warreners Arms. What I am trying to find, if any exist are any old photographs of Brownhills High Street around the 30’s and 40’s. What I am also trying to find out is when the track of the Chester road was changed. Where it goes past the bottom of Castle Hill, the 1902 Map shows it bending into Stonnall then back to its modern route. Any idea when it was straightened out and the little triangle was created?
I’ll be posting about the Stonnall in the next day or so, and hope these pictures of Brownhills in the 1930’s are of interest. If you have anything to contribute, please do comment. As usual, I pay tribute to the authors of the fine photo collections I’ve taken these images from.
Postcard shot from the junction of Lichfield Road and High Street. On the right would now be Aldi, on the left, Starlight Photography, formerly EE Jones. From ‘Brownhills and Walsall Wood on old picture postcards’ by Jan Farrow.
This remarkable image of the High Street is wonderfully detailed. The bikes, motion in the pedestrians and those lovely old cars… I’m not entirely sure, but I think this photo would have been taken from about where Downes newsagent stands today, looking up town toward Shire Oak. So much changed, so much lost. Taken from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo & Geoff Harrington.
I know Bradbury’s was in the middle of the High Street, and think it was possibly about where Latif’s is today, but I can’t be sure. Taken from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo & Geoff Harrington.
Looking the other way now, toward Mount Zion and the Town Hall. I just about remember going into Elkins Hardware with my old man in the seventies, before it was knocked down. I remember the smell, a mix of peat and paraffin. Taken from ‘Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo & Geoff Harrington.