IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Brearley Street, BIRMINGHAM, B19 3NR

Summer Lane runs south from Aston through the Gunsmiths' Quarter into Snow Hill on the northern edge of Birmingham city centre. In this photo the twin spires of St Chad's, the Catholic cathedral by Snow Hill, can just be seen in the distance among the high rise blocks of central Birmingham. The building in the foreground at the top left of the photo was a pub, the Stag's Head; a montage of photos from its history can be seen in this YouTube video from the Birmingham History Forum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAicncubFU4 . Old Summer Lane was a densely-built up district of factories, workshops, pubs and houses. It had its own song, 'See the Palm Trees Swaying', the title an ironic reference to the street's summery name. After the second world war the city council redeveloped the area and renamed it Newtown. The housing was condemned as slums and demolished. The modern commercial buildings in this photo are representative of the street today between Snow Hill and the ring road. For more on Summer Lane see this article by Carl Chinn in the Birmingham Evening Mail 26th April 2008 reproduced here https://astonbrook-through-astonmanor.co.uk/summerlane/introduction.html .

On New Town Row. Referring to the original Aston New Town.

New Town Row is the name of this stretch of the A34 running from Birmingham city centre to Aston. The area was redeveloped as Newtown in the late 1960s, with industrial units and high rise housing constructed further out, beyond the (middle) ring road. For more on Newtown see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtown,_Birmingham ; the first three housing blocks visible here are described on the University of Edinburgh Tower Block site here https://www.towerblock.eca.ed.ac.uk/development/newtown-redevelopment-area-u134 .

Part of the ground floor is used by a Carribean Hair Salon, Restaurant and Takeaway.

The further building was constructed, probably in the 1880s, for Arthur Bellamy & Co, who made lamp-burners there until 1950. The nearer building was erected in 1906 for John Chatterley & Sons Ltd, silversmiths and electro-plate manufacturers, who remained there until 1935, to be succeeded by a pram maker, Lloyd James & Co, until 1949. Since 2008 the buildings have been home to Westley Richards, a firm of gunsmiths founded in Birmingham in 1812, who make sporting guns. They restored the buildings facing the street, demolished the courtyards behind them, and constructed other facilities in their place, including an underground rifle range. For more information, see their site here https://www.westleyrichards.com/theexplora/pritchett-street-home-of-westley-richards/ .

The premises of Westley Richards a gunmaker founded by William Westley Richards in 1812.

The Barrel PH is on the corner of Summer Lane and Tower Street.

A group of 19th century factory buildings can be seen on this section of Brearley Street, rare survivals of the Summer Lane area of the Victorian era (for more on Summer Lane see here Image]). The central block has 'J C Newee. Patentee' inscribed on the parapet, with a royal coat of arms above. It is a listed building and dates from around 1840, according to the Historic England site https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1075719?section=official-list-entry . It appears to be in very poor condition. The Super Cafe & Restaurant in the more modern building to the right, with its sign in Amharic, is evidence of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities that have settled in the Newtown area.

Behind this billboard (or hoarding, to use the old British term) is a drive-through takeaway selling American-style doughnuts with chai, spicy Indian tea - a culinary marriage made in Birmingham.