Hi Everyone...

Hi,

My name is Kimran. I'm an architecture student currently living in Handsworth and studying my third year.

I am looking at the area of Lea Hall, Birmingham for a project at university. I am interested in the history of the area and how it has developed overtime. I stumbled across this blog whilst researching into the area and have been amazed by some of the changes in the town, especially changes in the towns infrastructures.

I was hoping to find some people in this forum who live in the area of Lea Hall, or anyone who has seen the area develop over the past century. If you do/have, please reply to this message. Thank you. I look forward to hearing your responses.

Hi Kimran what part of handsworth are you in ,I was born and bread in handsworth,lived there for 35 years,in 74 I moved to telford but use to go back regular to visit my parents ,but they are both gone now .I saw a lot of changes over the years .

Hi Slow Jo. It's great to see someone else from Handsworth on the forum. I also was born in Handsworth and have lived here ever since. I live within a few minutes of Handsworth Park. Has Handsworth changed much since you lived here? I've seen quite a lot changes since I was little, especially with Handsworth Park.

HI kimran I was born in hall road, then moved to a place called the grove ,it was opposite terrace road but it's gone now asthe land belonged to the rose hill road girls school ,then moved to barker street,got married from there ,lived still in handsworth clarence road moved from there to telford,still there.

Hi Kimran welcome to our forum we are not a massive one but very friendly. I live not far from Lea Hall. I can say I am afraid that for years Lea Hall has been rather run down. Many amenities have closed or moved, It, mainly a residential area. possibly the centre of it is Lea village and just down from there Lea Hall railway station. Sheldonboy.

Hi Sheldonboy,

Thanks for the warm welcome :)

I've been visiting Lea Hall for the past 2 days to gather information. It's really interesting you say that a lot of businesses have closed down or moved. Could you possibly think of any reasons as to why this may have happened?
I was speaking to the staff at 'The Pump' and they told me some really useful information about the employment of young people in the area. I was surprised to hear that a lot of young people, up to the age of 24 were not employed or in education... a lot of them previously had never worked and so were lacking the experience also. Do you think this attitude of not wanting to continue in education has affected the development of the area?

Kimran as I have known it the Lea area was always run down. It has , at least in the past been a high crime area. It was an area of high truancy and
burglaries were common. Largely the gardens were (and still are ) unkept. if you did spend good money on the garden there was a reasonable chance that your purchases would have been stolen. Also it wasn't a great area to be wandering around at night. If you think I am painting a black picture of the area, well that it how it was . most of the shops for example had to have shutters fitted and when closed they were covered in Graffitti.

It's really interesting you see the area in a negative way. During my visit, I and my fellow colleagues conducted 'social experiments'. One of these involved us pretending to drop an item to see if the person would pick it up and return it... quite surprisingly a lot of people didn't bother picking it up. We even had one man just kick it out the way.
We also encountered a lot of rude people whilst conducting our research, young and old. The fact that you mentioned the gardens is also fascinating as my university colleague is conducting research into gardens in the area and how they are used by local residents. Thank you very much for this info.

I've just been allowed access to this forum, I was telling Voltman, that I was brung up in Highgate Rd. Sparkbrook from 1949 till I was 11 in 1960 when the council deported us to a newly built block of flats in Hall Green.
I'm doing a BA in history with the OU but I'm intrigued to hear stories particularly of my old haunts from other contributors.
Regards john kings heath

Hi John welcome to Brummies Talking make yourself at home. I look forward to hearing from you pal.
Sheldonboy