Oh, this is wonderful. A high quality, clear image of The Station Hotel in the mid 1980s. A cracking image kindly supplied by Mike Leonard.
Mike Leonard, the reader who supplied the wonderful images of The Railway Tavern and Wheatsheaf last week has done it again – this tie with two super photos. One is of the Station Hotel, just prior to demolition in the mid 1980s, and another of the former Plumbers Paradise building, also demolished for the new road system that formed the Miner Island.
The images compliment the ones from Brownhills George, and are higher resolution. From the above, we can see that AH Taxis had a base next door to the abandoned pub, and Meehan’s Shoe Repairs had closed. The Sport & Leisure Shop – one I’d totally forgotten about – was still trading. I know CK Electronics was the red shop on the end of the row, but what was inbetween – can anyone remember? There today would be the block containing Specsavers, Brownhills Dental Practice and Wilkinson, and in the foreground, Aldi.
In the bottom picture, the upper corner of the physically hideous but well-loved Sportsman pub can be seen, the front of the car park marked with the white posts.
I’m trying to work out what the Misubishi advert was advertising, but can’t see. Seems to be some kind of cassette duplication system.
[Added later] OK, curiosity got the better of me. It’s a Mitsubishi Hi-Fi with a 7 cassette auto-changer. No shit. It’s the DA-L70 or a variant thereof, and I found a video of it on Youtube:
All I can say to that is ‘Wow!’ really…
Thanks to Mike for the pictures, they really are wonderful. Contributions like this really do bring our history to life.
Plumber’s Paradise – the building in the foreground – was once the Coffee Shop and had several uses, latterly a plumber’s merchants. It was demolished to create the miner island in the mid-80s. Behind it, The Hunstman/Sportsman/Top Clup, one of the ugliest pubs I ever saw. Another great image from Mike Leonard.
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Wow really amazing stuff, how funny that you forget what was where and how it used to look. I must have gone down that High Street so many times having worked in Hindley’s until being made redundant in the late 90s and yet most of this I had forgotten and still can’t remember how it looked then – strange eh? Keep it up Bob Lovin it.
Great photos. I remember most of that, with the exception of the 7-tape cassette changer, which is totally amazing…
Great pics. And that Mitsubishi completely passed me by at the time, yet it’s something I’d have killed for back then. And guess what, you can have your very own (though the model minus the record deck) for a mere £255: http://tinyurl.com/lgu5fzf
It’d look great with your black ash and chrome bachelor-pad furniture and white sheepskin rug.
Going back a little farther than the 1980’s, I remember when the little suite of offices above ‘Sports and Leisure’, in the first photo, was an important venue in the lives of Brownhills and Walsall Wood folk. This was the first siting of B,U.D.C. “Food Office” before its move into the Council House at a later date, during the war. The first ration-books for the urban district were issued from these offices, and although they were issued alphabetically, over a period, a long wait in a queue was always to be expected. An addition to the family would always mean a trip to the food office for a green ration-book, issued to the under-fives and containing orange juice tokens and things like that.
There was an optician’s shop at the bottom, and stairs leading up to the offices, which formed the entrance and exit, making it a tight squeeze for coming and going. Waiting time was often so prolonged, that to move up one step was seen as a major triumph, and to actually get into the office after an hour or so – what bliss !
Still, we queued for nearly everything, back then.
If I remember right the plumbers paradise was the original Top Club before the new one was built had many happy times in there even had my first listen to the band Ambrose Slade who later became Slade. I do remember down past the Station Hotel used to be a driving school in 1973 that’s where I had my lessons and in the 60’s at the bottom of the row was Salts Chip shop.
The Sports and Leisure shop was owned by a man named David Craig. This shop morphed into Alpha Sports and moved further up the High St on the opposite side. It still trades to day in Lichfield, a few doors from the Scales pub
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After CK was Toms Cabin,I used to work there.Next side of the arch was the old Raleigh bike shop which then became a furniture shop run by two guys called Don & Terry.
Just remembered it was a ladies clothes shop called Paula on the other side of the furniture shop.
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My Husband and I actually purchased a Mitsibishi Hi-Fi as shown and are still in possession of it. It cost a cool £425.00 back in the 80’s. Amazing machine!!!!!
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