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.