Competition: Tell us your Wednesfield memories and win a limited edition calendar
Recently the Wednesfield Area Action Network put together a very special 2010 calendar to celebrate Wednesfield’s history.
WAAN teamed up with staff from the Wolverhampton Archives who very kindly allowed the use of 24 historic photographs that depict Wednesfield’s past. WAAN’s members have picked photos featuring local landmarks, some of which still exist today in an effort to show how Wednesfield has changed over the years.
We have been lucky enough to get our hands on 12 of these glossy A4 calendars to give away to our readers. Read on to find out how to win a calendar…
If you’d like to win one of these fantastic limited edition calendars and own a little piece of local history, all you have to do is post a comment on the WV11 website by clicking here, and tell us your favourite Wednesfield memory. Your memory doesn’t have to be as old as some of these photos, we just want to hear your stories of every day life in the area.
We will pick our 12 favourite memories/stories and notify the winners – your stories will also be featured on the website. Please make sure you add your email address on the comments form in order for us to contact you.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Quite a recent memory but I thought I'd start things off.
I was in the supermarket last year as it was being re-branded as a Co-op and decided to buy my partner some sweets as she is fond of reminiscing when her grandparents used to buy her sweets on the weekend from Fine Fare. I heard a mobile phone ring and a little old women shouted down the handset.
"I'm in the Village buying bread at Fine Fare."
It doesn't matter what changes happen and whose name is plastered all over the walls somethings never change it's still the village and it's still Fine Fare.
Ha – How right you are Steve, My Great Grandad used to live in the high rise flats near New Cross and we used to go and visit with him every Friday morning, I remember there being lots of talk about "the village" and me having no idea what they were talking about – It was only a little later on that I realised they meant Wednesfield town and quite often in recent years I've caught myself calling it "the Village" too!!
I remember playing over Wednesfield flower park on the long 1970’s summer nights.Our house 15 South Avenue backed onto the alleyway which borders the Park, me and & Brothers used to play golf on the pitch and Putt course and climb the trees.
We used to play tracker on the park with about what seemed hundreds of other kids from the area. Or we used to get chased of the bowling green by the Parkie’ because we used to break dance on it with our Lino.
On saturdays it used to be 20 a side playing footie on top of the swing park, and when the parkie’ locked the gates we used to climb back over and finish our games.
Oh what memories, I miss them days!!
What a day it was when the Queen came to Wednesfield, our school Long knowle along with many others lined up in Lakefield to watch Her Majesty drive past i think she was wearing pink that day back in the 60s, but it was all over in a moment and i could be wrong of the colour.Back in them days i was more intrested in going to the Regal cinema on the corner of Alfred Squire road and High Street on a Saturday morning , walking from the Long knowle estate down Amos Lane over the park thru the flower gardens and out down the alleyway and into Wednesfield the back way.
My family moved into the Village end of Neachells Lane in 1946, and I went to the Primary School just 100yds away: across the road from it was a lovely little sweet shop where I spent my first sixpence after sugar-rationing ended. Alfred Squire Road was just a cinder track, with overgrown allotments and fields on either side – no Police Station or Council Offices, but hedges and thickets and trees and wild undulating ground – wonderful territory for young boys to fight off rampaging Indians or rival gangs. And we often walked that cinder track to the Regal, and I too went alone to see Flash Gordon and Hopalong Cassidy on Saturday mornings. God, life was so good!
At the foot of Gregory's Bridge was a doll's house of a sweet shop (now an undertaker's?), and opposite, nestling alongside the Dog and Partridge, was a tiny fish'n'chip shop – best chips I've tasted in my 70 years. Between my house and the chippie's was the Marshall forge – old man Marshall was still making animal traps in his smithy, and I often watched as his grandson was my friend. The Village shops were small, quaint, grimy – I remember a miniature chemist's, across from Bailey's the grocer, Done's the baker, and Howe's the greengrocer. I used to buy my comics and get my hair cut at Charlesworth's at the top of Well Lane, by some small chapel. And I had many connections with St Thomas' church. Round the corner in Rookery Lane was Squire's hardware store – fascinating for a kid! – and a little further on was Tedstill's bicycle store and a flea-pit cinema I never visited.
Opposite our house was a large field (now Pickering Road?) which the farmer ploughed with a shire horse – I have a photo to prove it! Not far away was a haulage company with big trucks – I forget its name, though I never thought I would.
There was a definite village atmosphere to Wednesfield at the time. It was grimy and downtrodden, but I have only happy memories of growing up there.
Referring to PERDS recollections of Wednesfield from 1946 onwards.
The sweet shop, was it the one by the ally leading to Lawfred Cresent?
The cinder track (now Alfred Squire Road) we always referred to it as 'The Regal Fields' the 'Regal' being the cinema at the High Street end of the field.
The 'Saturday morning Crush' at the Regal, I remember it well! 2d. Downstairs & 3d. Upstairs.
I had 6d. Pocket money & and would get a bag of chips (Two pence half pence) from Gradeys wooden chip shop (they opened Saturday mornings just for us kids going to the flicks), 3d. Upstairs at the pictures left me with a half penny to get some sucks on the way home. That’s if I could find somewhere to tether me hoss while I went in the shop.
The sweet shop by Gregory's Bridge was also a watch repairer, and next to it, going towards the canal, where three or four cottages and the small road between the front of them and the footpath going over the bridge was where the boaties used to walk their horses home at the end of a days work.
I can recall the name Marshalls forge, and I know my dad used to talk about him, but I can't recall just where it was.
Charlesworth's barbers was Pickerings in my day, and they had a rotary electric hair brush that they held with both hands to run it over your head, (an it da arf hurt). They were also a paper shop, and sold sweets, & tobacco as well.
Tedstill's wasn't the only shop catering for bikes in the Rookery. 'Dave Inner Tube' as we called him also sold bits for bikes from a tiny shop nearer to 'Squires Hardware'.
The flea-pit you refer to was the 'Smack', the correct name was the 'Ideal Cinema', but if you asked 100 people in Wenesfield where the 'Ideal Cinema' was, 99 of them would not know, but if you asked for the 'Smack' every one of them would be able to tell you.
Foulks was the name of the transport company. They were coal merchants, and had a yard just over the Rookery Bridge (now a Garden Centre). Then they got a lucrative contract to transport long tubes for the Weldless Steel Tube Co. and took another yard in Neachells Lane.
The Village atmosphere was somewhat different then, but if you look hard enough, you can still find some of it. (Try me for a start on a Saturday morning when I go to 'Firkins' for my Apple Turnover, or how about that Dude with the straw hat who sells carved wooden items on a market stall, then there is Ray Fellows Local Historian, you can buy his book 'Wednesfield My Village' from the 'Stars News Shop' (as was) in the High Street.
Balloonatic – four great posts! Thanks for the memories! Here's my response.
The alley by the sweetshop opposite the primary school – I thought it led to somewhere we called The Banjo. Maybe that was our name for Lawfred Cresc – alongside The Falcon pub. My friend Colin Gough lived down that way.
That scrubby area around what's now Alfred Squire Rd: we called the area nearest Neachells Lane 'The Allotments' (though nobody ever worked them). The Regal Fields was the area at the rear of the Regal, where the Community Centre now stands. But perhaps that was just our understanding of the area.
I don't recall Gradey's chippie near the Regal on Saturday mornings – maybe I couldn't afford it!
Perhaps the Gregory's Bridge mini-shop did repair watches too – I was a kid and it was the sweeties that grabbed my attention. I don't remember horses using the path alongside: the horses seemed to congregate at the wharf by the Boat Inn, somewhere behind the current library opposite the church.
Marshall's forge. Start at Gregory's Bridge and go along Neachells Lane. After about 75 yards, the road swings right. Marshall's place was on the bend, on the right. The red-brick house jutted out on to the pavement, and the forge was a barn-like structure just behind. Old man Marshall often stood on the corner to chat to passers-by – he was a very sociable character! They were still exporting huge (and wicked) traps to Africa and Australia in my day – big game stuff.
Charlesworth's may well have been Pickering's earlier. They also sold pretty desirable toys! In the barber's, I was never subjected to the hair brush, but an Italian worked there who whistled continuously as he lopped one's hair. I remember the draught of his whistling.
Yes, The Smack! But did anyone ever go there? I think we thought we'd get the plague if we visited!
I remember Foulks beyond Rookery Bridge – not far from Kenyon's garage and a canal wharf. When Foulks arrived in Neachells Lane, they advertised themselves as Haulage Contractors. Some of my family worked at the Weldless and at Richards & Ross (where I did stocktaking as a student to earn some dosh!).
I've got the Wednesfield Village Book, of course. The Star News Shops was a real upstart in the village, like the new pet shop between there and the Regal. It was a sign things were changing. One of my friends lived in Hickman Street, off Graiseley Lane. Quite suddenly, Hickman Street disappeared for ever. Then again, it was not a street to merit much affection.
Thanks again for your fascinating posts!
Gradey's chippy, was the one by by Gregoreys Pub, (the chips you liked so much).
I would be approaching over Gregorey's Bridge then down the High Street to the Regal.
The Smack, It changed it's program twice a week, Mon. Tue. Wed. / Thu. Fri. Sat. But there was always a serial on, so you had to go twice a week if you wanted to keep up with the story.
Hi again,
A Banjo, or (Pudding Bag) is Wetchfelt slang for a Crescent that has only one entrance, and no exit, so you have to go round the top of the Crescent and out the same way you came in, shaped like a Banjo.
See Woden Crescent off Woden Avenue, or the one in Lichfield Road, by the terminus (if you don’t know the terminus it’s the traffic island in Lichfield Road, at the top of Wood end Road, where the Trolly busses turned round for the return journey to Wolverhampton.