Google Street View.

Google street view Brighton is on line from Thursday.
What do you think of it, I think it's brilliant, and a boon for researchers and such like ,also for people who want to go to a particular place and want to see whats what before making a decision.
I don't go along with the privacy bit, if you can see it from the street, you can't be private.

John

I agree that Google Street View is a marvellous tool, and I also agree with you that the privacy objection is a load of old cod's. If you can walk down the street and take a photo if you want to. Then how can Google be invading anyones privacy. They blur out things like peoples faces and vehicle registration numbers.

It can be annoying when looking for when looking for a particular place and you come across a blank screen because some one has objected to their house being shown. I think they only do it because they can.

Another thing that annoys me is that there are whole streets in Birmingham that are missed out. Did the survey car miss them out?

Phil

Yes it is a bit annoying about the missing streets, I wonder what the criteria was for choosing which streets to film.

John

I don't know, it seems to be pretty haphazard in Birmingham. But it does seem to be mostly over the south west of Birmingham places like Harborne & Edgbaston. On the whole I would think at least 30% of Birmingham has been left out.

Phil

One for Signman in case you don't find it elswhere.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=U...359.995877&z=19

Cheers Voltman, I've spent a few hours in there with various females when it was a cafe.

John

I suppose it was more like this when you used it, bowler hats and crinolines & ankle length skirts as well.

Phil

There you go again, you cheeky young devil.
It was known as the 13 club when I used it, don't know why, we were all about 16-18.

John

Any idea when it closed as a pub?

Phil

Phil,
I have no idea, but would say early part of last century.

Mitchells and Butlers sold it to the City in 1924 with the condition that it should never be used again for the sale of alcohol.
The building in the background of the photo, between the pub and the Trust School is Yardley Fire Station.
The pub became a confectioners and then a cafe.

This information, as well as the photo can be found in Michael Byrn's book "Yardley"

Voltman

That's why I never had a drink in there then, I had the occasional jar up the road at the Ring O Bells in the 60's but that was a terrible dismal pub back then.

Phil

Just in case you didn't take a Google walk from the Talbot to the Ringers, here it is now.

It's suffering from "Closed Pubs Disease" but still standing.
A planning application to build a silly number of sheltered apartments has recently been withdrawn.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=U...359.995877&z=19

Voltman

Voltman

Here a photo that was taken slightly before the Google photo, As for the sheltered apartment thing. Its the latest con they are trying in Solihull. They think if the put a caretaker in the block, sell to the elderly and charge them on top for the caretaker and call them Sheltered Accommodation. They will have more chance of their planning application being passed.

Phil

It certainly doesn't look like it was about to succumb to spontaneous combustion in that photo, phil.

Here’s another link, this time it's to an aerial view of the Wagon & Horses, Coventry Road.
It is also suffering from the same disease as the Ringers. If I remember correctly, planning permission for an obscene number of apartments was refused on the grounds that the Old Stable building would have been in the way of proper road access and as it was listed or historical it couldn’t be touched. The problem resolved itself when the stable building caught the same disease as the pub a little while after this photo was taken.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=U...9,0.002061&z=20

This view is of course subject to being update at Google and will then show a supermarket just as the walkabout view currently shows one being built.

A very odd thing about this pub it how quickly it closed for the last time. I was out for a curry with a mate one evening and while we awaited our lift home we looked in through the windows, believing the place to be still trading, and saw glasses of beer on the bar, optics on the back counter and a disarray of furniture, it looked as if they had left in a hurry, A local free newspaper had a story regarding this sudden closure but I don’t remember any conclusions being drawn.

Voltman