THE ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS

'Hello Billy, I found your e.mail address on your blog - which I stumbled across by accident. I moved from Wolverhampton more than thirty years ago but often look at the City websites to keep up-to-date.

For many years, I have been trying to find someone with knowledge of the Stafford Street area of Wolverhampton.

For some years I have been trying to find the history of a piece of ground in (Lower ?) Stafford Street, which was used as a football pitch/recreation ground.

It lay between Stafford Street and North Street and in the 1940s, I'm sure I can remember seeing air-raid shelters on it.

I should be so grateful if you can tell me anything about it. My father was born in that area in 1905 and when his father died in 1918 they were living I believe at N0.4 Boscobel Place.

Regards,

Eileen.'


Now there's a name to conjure up a little bit of Wolverhampton History. Many an old Wuffler with an historic appetite will gather this once small ancient court off Lower Stafford Street inherited its name from that famous house just 3 miles distant from Codsall.

The house built on the domain land of Whiteladies during the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by John Giffard of Chillington. Its named derived from Italian, 'Bosco Bello' - Fair Wood. Now as you can see this picture its descriptive name would still have been appropriate when this map of 1875 was drawn up as most of this area still mainly consisted of gardens.

Regarding the "Rec". The ground in Question.

Yes Eileen I remember the piece of waste ground you mention quite well, it was situated between North Street and Stafford Street, bordered by Red Hill Street and Boscobel Place.

It did indeed have air-raid shelters built at the top at one time, and I remember Red Cross Street School close by also used it for sporting activities, eventually they built a clinic on the site it in the 1950's.

1932-33 Hindes Red Book describes it as such:

Known as Red Hill Street open space. This space is now open to children after school hours from 5.00pm till dusk each day except Sunday. Two sets of See-saws and Swings were erected during 1931.


For all the 'Old Wufflers' who have memories to share of this bustling triangle from the Gladstone North Street and the Elephant and Castle Stafford Street, down to the 'Five Ways', above is a map I have drawn-up to stimulate those dormant minds.


Summerhill Lane / Windmill Bank, now Lower Stafford Street, a further little stimulation.

Early maps show Wolverhampton had two windmills quite near to the town centre, this was the site of one of them on the east side of Lower Stafford Street, and right up to the mid 20th century the name Windmill was frequently used for parts of this area.

This is a pre-war photo of Lower Stafford Street, between Beaumont Street on the right and Bonemill Lane, on the left.

It shows the entrance to Stafford Street Congregational Church, with the Clinic and Assembly rooms next door partly concealed by the rundown properties that adjoined it .

One of my earliest memories is of a visit here aged three during the war with my mother to be immunised. It must have worked because almost seven decades later I am still here. Thank God!.

QUERY CORNER

Hello to everyone who enjoys reading my Blog, again I would like to say a big thank you, as it's always fun to get an email or a comment on something I have posted.

I have had a few more comments left on the posts recently and I hope this trend continues to grow as I really enjoy people asking me if I remember certain places or people from Wolverhamptons yesteryear.

To make it easier to for other blog followers to read peoples questions and my answers, I have decided to try something new.

From now on if someone leaves a comment with a question, if i have anything to say on the subject I will feature the original comment and my answer in it's own little post.

I will be calling these posts 'Query Corner', and will show the original comment and my reply to them within the post.

OK, with that little explaination out of the way I'd like to move on to the first ever Query Corner.



QUERY CORNER

'Hi Bill do you, or anybody out there remember a second hand car pitch in Molineux St just past Vincent St, opposite the football ground, in the mid 1950s, or have any photos of Molineux St in this time?' - John


Yes John, I remember it well It seemed to me from stories I heard that there had always been an area of open ground on that corner of Vincent Street used over the years for garage related businesses.

One such story came from Kath Thomas, whose father Albert Thomas was the licencee at the 'Cottage Spring' in North Street.

Its beer garden overlooked that area of open ground and Molineux Street. When the original Molineux Street stand blew down in the gales in January 1925, he allowed the customers to stand on the garden tables on match days, and did a roaring trade.

But back to your comment and this photo from the time in question. At that time S & H.Amis limited, sold second hand cars from here next door to Pay Pool Motor engineers on the corner of Vincent Street, seen opposite the returning trolleybus.



There were times before and after the war, when the No.3 bus from Fordhouse's would have been stranded here in Molineux Street for above ten minutes, as the hordes of fans left the ground after the final whistle.

A little further up the street next to the hoarding which separates it from O'Connors shoe repairs, the pet shop is finding the trade very slow these days.

But on the opposite corner to Jimmy O'Connor. The Fox Hotel is still doing a good trade, especially when the 'Wolves' are at home.

The bus will continue on its return journey from Fordhouses and make its right turn into North Street, in front of Jones' fish and chip shop and Corkes Radio shop next door, and will proceed to its stop at the 'Chequer Ball'.


Whadya Know? Whadya Say?

THE FOUR HOVELS

No. 26 Nursery Street was the house my Grandparents moved to; the end house in the street overlooking an area of the Londes which had been turned into waste ground at the start of the demolition of North Street in the late 1950's. But for at least 100 years prior to the end of the first World war it was the site of four small one roomed houses and the Colonel Vernon Pub fronting North Street.

(Anti-clockwise from back right we have my Aunts Francis, Betty, Josie, my cousin Mary-Lou and my aunt Doreen)

Here is a picture of my four Aunts and my cousin, photographed in 1931 above the four Hovels in the Londes.

(1875 Map Showing The Four Hovels in the “Londes" )

To gain access to these back-to-back houses below my Grandads abode, you had to descend a flight of steps which led directly from the Londes into a courtyard. My father recalling an Irish family that lived in the court told me of a visit to the Mulraney’s; he told me that you had to enter through the single door into the one and only downstairs room, there was no other entrance. Inside there was a large open fireplace, no cooker only the open fire, and in the corner a sink and tap. There was a sparsely filled cupboard in the recess of the fireplace, a scrub topped table, one old armchair and a couple of wooden ones tucked in under the table. From this one room, stairs led to a single room above to the familys only sleeping are with the only form of lighting in the home, candles or paraffin lamps. A little way from the houses were the communal toilet facilities and the shared cold water tap. These were the entire facilities for a families who lived in the Londes.

These few hovels were left as waste ground in the mid 1920's and remained so.

THE LONDES

I want to talk about a place called "The Londes". Picture this place:

(Molineux 2002)

Due to the building of the new Asda Supermarket, the re-building of the Molineux grounds, and the considerable extensions to the University Campus, the area where I spent my youth has been completely replaced by new buildings where students can stay, and also by their places of learning.

Gone forever is the lively self-contained community that was situated in between the two parishes of St Patrick's and St Peter and Paul's, where until the late 1950s you could find every kind of shop and industry, all of them drawing trade from the large amount of working class people living there.

(Map of the lost North Street around the 1950s)

For you to see and imagine this area, full of houses and businesses all to be re-allocated between the 1950s to 1970s, you start at the Molineux F.C. Car Park and go to the rear of the Asda Supermarket. Then walk twenty yards or so up what was once North Street towards the city centre.

(Steve Bull Stand seen from the Londes, mid 1980s)

On the left opposite the Steve Bull stand you will see some steps. These steps lead into what was once Nursery Street. I was born in Nursery Street in 1937, and my grandparents lived at the lower end of the street at No. 26 which overlooked “The Londes”.

Now, instead of the neat rows of terraced houses, there is just the Arthur Storer Building, which is a student faculty building. On the spot of where my home once stood is now the entrance to The School of Legal Studies.

(Steps to Nursery Street 1974)

Although the cast iron bollards that used to stand above the large steps at the bottom of this cul-de-sac have long since gone, if you were familiar with the area prior to the 1970s, then there are still some small reminders from the past there for you to spot.

(Steps to Nursery Street 2008)

Around this walk small bits of “The Londes” are still standing with original parts of the walls visible. Also you can see small portions of the diamond blue bricks that covered most of the pavements around the town at that time.

(Looking down North Street, with The Plume of Feathers sign on the right 1946)

As you carry on up North Street, past the south entrance to “The Londes” (where in my youth was the short cut to Charles Street or Stafford Street, via Lawyers Field or Deanery Row), there is now sited the main entrance to the College of Art.

(The Plume of Feathers Pub 2008)

But then what will always keep this spot clear in my memory of the past, is to see, standing on its original spot in front of the College of Art (thanks to all of the football supporters and drinkers), the Plume of Feathers pub.


Also just a hundred yards further up North Street stands what was once the Fox Hotel, now renamed and with a different brewery, but still a pub occupying the ground it did when my Dad courted my Mom from there in the early 1930s.

(The Fox Inn and the Underpass on the left 1974)

One regret - the Fox no longer looks across North Street to Charles Street and Tin Shop Yard, and the little shops up to the Chequer Ball and the Market Patch. It just stares at the large blank wall of the Ring Road under-pass.