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Rosary Villas, Poplar Road, BIRMINGHAM, B11 1UL

I worked for Midland Bank HSBC for 32 years and spent all but the last two in Birmingham Branches. I am photographing all the branches, or what's left of them, as they were when I joined Midland Bank in 1963. The branches all start with the sorting code 40-11. This is the site of the 382 Stratford Road Branch close to the busy Stratford Road, Warwick Road junction. The original night safe is still on the outside of the building. The sorting code was 40-11-32

The Mermaid was a Victorian pub on a prominent triangular site in Sparkhill where the Warwick & Stratford Roads fork. Old photos show an edifice with a pair of octagonal spirelets, later replaced by the neoclassical building visible here, though its Victorian wings survive to either side. It had a parapet with a relief of a mermaid by the local artist William Bloye, which was sadly lost some time after the pub closed and was then gutted by fire in 2010. See the Lost Pubs Project site https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/warwickshire/birmingham_b11_mermaid.html , which mentions the important role this pub played for the Irish community in Birmingham in the mid 20th century as a place where men could meet and find work, including unregistered labouring jobs 'on the lump'. Richard Vinen discusses this in his chapter on the Birmingham Irish in 'Second City: Birmingham and the Forging of Modern Britain', Allen Lane, 2022. On the Mermaid's 1980s life as a music venue, a hub of anarcho-punk, metal and emerging grindcore, see Sarah Lafford's post at the Historic England blog https://heritagecalling.com/2024/08/30/at-the-mermaid-punk-metal-and-grindcore-in-1980s-birmingham/ , also Harry Sword at the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/11/the-brummie-pub-that-birthed-grindcore-the-mermaid-sparkhill and the BBC site https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgw45204wwo.amp .

On Medlicott Road.

At this point Stratford Road is also the A34. The junction with Warwick Road (the A41) is visible on the right, below a poster from the general election campaign that culminated three days previously. This area has a large Pakistani population and there are a large number of shops on Stratford Road serving that community.

M J Nolan, purveyor of Twinings Fine Teas & Coffees, has given way to the Mughal General Stores, reflecting the shift over the years in Sparkhill from Irish settlement to South Asian, especially Pakistani. But Twinings still has pride of place at the street corner. To the left, the Hamza 24/7 Supermarket sports old-fashioned retractable awnings.

Looking towards Birmingham city centre from the junction with Weatheroak Road.

A large mosque in a modern architectural style is proposed for this triangular site bounded by Stratford Road, Highgate Road and Stoney Lane (of 'Balti Triangle' fame, a restaurant quarter now much in decline). In the meantime a Lebanese flag flies from a lamppost, in solidarity with Lebanon under heavy bombardment by Israel during Israeli-Hezbollah fighting in October 2024.