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Trinity Street, SMETHWICK, B67 7AA

The office deals with post for the B66 and B67 postal areas. Although the signs outside say Smethwick Sorting Office, it seems to be more often referred to as Smethwick Delivery Office.

The Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick is named after Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the first guru, or teacher, of the Sikh religion. The Gurdwara is the second oldest Sikh temple in Britain.

The Church is the Parish Church for the Parish of the Resurrection, Smethwick. This is an amalgamation of several parishes. The church building stands on the site of a chapel of ease, which was consecrated in 1838. The church was rebuilt in 1888, because of an increasing congregation. It incorporated much of the stone used in the original building. There have been many alterations since, to adapt to changing needs. Image

The Parish Church for the Parish of the Resurrection, Smethwick. The church's website says, "Today we have a congregation that seeks to be welcoming and inclusive, that seeks to honour the fullest possible breadth of traditions from world music, to incense, dance to sung eucharist, encouraging exploration of faith by all ages and understandings of faith and no faith. We aspire to be a church where there is room for all and all are welcome." Image

An OS cutmark (along with something that is probably the building mason's mark to its left) near the doorway of Holy Trinity church in the centre of Smethwick. Originally levelled at 163.187m above Ordnance Datum Newlyn.

The original church on the present site was consecrated in 1838 as a chapel of ease to the ancient parish of Harbourne. Four years later the parish was divided into two, and Holy Trinity became a parish church in its own right.Smethwick grew rapidly in the second half of the 19th century. In 1888 most of the original church was rebuilt, using much of the Tixall stone, but on a larger scale to seat over 800 people. Until Smethwick lost its status as a County Borough in 1966, Holy Trinity had a major involvement in the civic life of the borough and the Civic Service was held here on 'Mayor's Sunday' every year.

This is a new community centre, which cost £1.2 million, of which a large chunk came from the European Structural Funds Programme. Based here are various services, including the Smethwick Youth & Community Centre. Trinity Point also offers "customised services to meet identified needs within local disadvantaged communities".

This is the largest and oldest Gurdwara (Sikh Temple) in the UK, and it is claimed also the largest in Europe. It came into use in the early 1960's.

Many years ago - far too many to think about - this was the hub of the locality. To the left was the Prince's cinema to which, as children, my father used to take my brother & me. Next to it was a chemists shop above which Tich the barber had his salon. Tich was a retired jockey. The Gurdwara now occupies the site of the Smethwick Congregational Church. Further along was a small, but very busy Post Office then the Midland Bank followed by Lloyds Bank. On this side of the road - where the grass verge can be seen - was Barretts the greengrocer, then Union St followed by a chemists shop and Walsh's, the local department store. It's all changed now & has become little more than a car-park.

Ordnance Survey benchmark on Holy Trinity Church levelled with a height of 163.1869m above sea level at Newlyn. To the left of it is a smaller unidentified mark.