OLD WEST BROMWICH PHOTOS

Now, Mick has got in touch and asked about the Black Lake area in West Brom and wanted to know where the name came from.

I am sure years ago someone told me or I read it somewhere that it had nothing to do with a lake, I may be wrong ??

Does anyone know the answer ??

Paul

Im not sure if its relevent to your question but when i was a nipper there was a very large deep "marlhole" at  the  hilltop side /church lane side of the canal. I dont know if black refers to the "marl"? but you could find coal over a lot of the area.

                             cheers

                                           john mason

the marl hole was at the rear of where all saints school is now,and "marl" is a type of clay,i can remember it being operated. (vaguely)

"I bet you a bag of suck it was where the swans from Swan Village went for a paddle!" (only joking..)

 There seems to be so many interesting names locally,  Ocker Hill, Tat Bank, Meadowsweet, Harvilles Hawthorne, I am sure somewhere there must be documented the origins for them..

I don't think there was a lake but there was a colliey and I am sure the wet slack & slurry looked like a huge Black Lake. I remember reading that years ago

bill phillips at 06:39PM on Feb 22, 2010

the marl hole was at the rear of where all saints school is now,and "marl" is a type of clay,i can remember it being operated. (vaguely)

That is spot on Bill

At the back of where All Saints School is today were brickworks and they used to extract the clay from there and make the bricks, they then put all the bricks on the canal network which used to run across those fields, the canal has long gone but it use to run under the road at the Vicarage Rd/Church Lane junction, before you went down the hill and it used to wind around Hatley Heath, Hill Top and branch off towards Wednesbury before coming out at the top of Johnsons bridge by the rolling mills

"Johnsons Rolling Mills"     that brought back a few memories, Dad used to work opposite at the Oriental Tube in church lane during the fifties and I would take him his lunch and a bottle of tea, many hours were then spent looking through Johnsons arched windows, fascinated by the red hot strip that got longer and longer after every pass through the rollers..

What was the name of the pub nearby ? they must have sold gallons of beer to those sweating blokes!

Dad told me they were all sent home because the coal was frozen in the boats on the canal mentioned, this was in 1947. and we think this winter is cold!!

Do any others remember the trips local factory social clubs used to have for their employees and family?

Uncles were asked if there would be a trip to the pantomine and we looked forward to having a present from Father Christmas at the works party.

In the early fifties I remember going to London on a special train organised by the Gas Works Social Club from Swan Village station (double headed by 5072 Hurricane and a Prairie tank)

The 'Oriental Tube' club was in a little passageway next to Burtons on Dartmouth square, If you took them a half pint glass Trows would fill it with their wonderful ice cream for a few coppers..  

The pub opposite was the Queens Head  and The Nags Head at the bottom of Johnson's Bridge

Quite peculiar coming across this post, I have just taken my Mom out for lunch, this is what it takes to extract information about West Brom. We were talking about relatives that were in the licensed trade, she happened to mention that her eldest sister was born two doors down from the Sow and Pigs, and that the area was called lakeside? Unfortunately I didn't see the relevance at the time. Another lunch perhaps!

Its no coincidence then that the first street past Black lake on the hilltop side is LAKESIDE road. J.E.M.

my first job when i left school in august 1939 was in the office at Johnsons Essa,after the war,when i left the army i worked at  Oriental and also the gas works,so i probably know some of your connections,what,s your father name?.i used to take my wife and children to the Oriental club at weekends,and the No 11 bus was right outside to take us home to Vicarage Rd.,i,m starting to feel old!

Sorry for such a long delay in replying, my dads name was George Howes, mom was Alice.

After getting married they lived in Vicarage Rd opposite the doctors, in 1949 they moved to Pemberton Rd.

One of my memories is of 'finding' small bits of metal swarf inside his turnups, they came from working on the "Yodda?" machine involved in making tubes..

I remember having to go up some stairs to the club, the snooker room was off limits to little boys so I could only look into the magical smoke filled room from the doorway. 

Isn't it funny how we remember rubbish things but not when it's the wife's birthday!!