By Pete Try
The last years of the 19th century and the first of the 20th were decisive in determining that layout of the shopping area at the Chester Road end of Boldmere Road. Planning applications were sought and buildings constructed so that by 1910 we have what we see now, with some very important differences.
The shops in little Boldmere were the main source of goods and services for local people and as such were a centre of the community in a way that is perhaps hard to imagine now.
For instance, the building that is now the Boldmere Tap was a grocery store with a greengrocers next door.
On the other side of the Boldmere Road in a purpose built parade, there was by 1910 two butchers, a draper, confectioner, ladies outfitters and an ironmonger. Another draper Mr Joseph Bunn (should have been a baker) also ran a sub-post office.
Then there was a dairyman and hairdresser. Next door to the Dugmore’s two shops was Miss Adele Banns, also a draper and then Miss Helen Dukes a stationer, who also ran a lending library.
K.J Williams also describes how a baker Mr Edwin Bird, had a shop in Little Boldmere from 1903 which continued to be run by his family until 1964. This is now the premises of Astbury Kilbury Electrical Engineers and in 1994 when Mr Williams was writing the old ovens were still in place. (A History of Boldmere, by KJ Williams, 1994, p53, Westwood Press Publications) Mr Bird’s son Brian still lives in the local area, and is the president of Highbury Theatre.
On the other side of Boldmere Road, back towards the Chester Road, there were other businesses; a dressmaker, a shopkeeper (unspecified), a boot maker and Mr John Thomas Ensor, a chemist.
Sheffield Road itself also had its traders. A 1901-2 directory shows Mr Louis Benwell working as a pork butcher from No.1 Sunnyside and Davis and Son, builders, operated from No.4. (The building is still there.)
In many cases the land once occupied by larger Victorian family homes is now occupied by flats or homes built since the second world war. A good number still exist though and some householders have proudly retained the original house names shown on the house deeds.
Larger houses that have disappeared in that way include ‘Normanhurst’ and ‘Highlands’ but others that still proudly serve the families that live in them are ‘Bairnsdale’, ‘Lynwood’ and ‘Coniston’. These names reflect a popular and romantic connection with the rural and wilder place in Britain.
The Sutton Coldfield News of 11 May 1905 contained the following caption next to a picture taken through a french window of two Edwardian children playing at a table in the garden: “The best assurance of the continued existence of Boldmere as a pleasant suburb lies in the long, well-wooded gardens of some of its older houses”.
In the 40 years since the railway came through, the district had become something new. It was now no longer a bleak and cheerless tract of land far from the haunts of men.
