Site History

Last Updated : 11 March 2013

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11/3/2013	A couple of tram updates today.  While digging through a box of family pictures, I came across a tram picture that wasn't on the site.  I have added the view of tram 841 outside the British Oak to the Pershore Road section of Trams and Buses. John got in touch after spending some time adding colour to one of my father's pictures.  I think it looks great so please have a look at his version of the view Nr Holly Lane at the bottom of the North of City Centre page, also in Trams and Buses. I'm still on the lookout for New Street Station pictures and memories!  Please read the 14 Jan update below.
11/2/2013	Finally added another page I've had planned for a long time!  Some great pictures of Halesowen from 1956 can now be found in the Other Places section. If you missed out on my appeal for help with a project about New Street Station, please read this.
14/1/2013	When I last updated this history with news of my bathroom project, little did I know it would take me 7 months to complete!  The fruits of my labour can be seen here and prove it wasn’t just an excuse.   It’s been fairly quiet while I’ve been away so I only have a few small updates today.  Graham got in touch with some memories triggered by the Birmingham pictures.  As a result,  the comments on the Longbridge and Bearwood pages in the South Birmingham Businesses section have been updated, as has one comment on the Bull Ring and Inner Ring Road by Leonard Stace page. Stuart also got in touch identifying a mystery signal box on the Dad's Day Out - 22/6/55 page.  My thanks to both for their feedback.   As I said last June, I still have lots of plans for the site.  But… I’ve only gone and signed up for another book so the website will continue to be a little neglected for the next few months, I’m afraid.  I’m looking for some help with the new book so if you have some interesting pictures in and around the New Street Station area, or want to share your memories of the station, please read this.
30/6/2012	Regular visitors to the site will have noticed a lack of activity lately.  I’m afraid it’s another DIY project stealing my spare time!  It’s the bathroom that is the target and I can see the job going on for some time to come.  I’ll try and sneak some small updates in now and again but I doubt there’ll be any major additions.  But pleased be assured that I have plenty of great pictures still to share and plenty of plans for the future! Today I have a few updates courtesy of visitors to the site.  Gordon got in touch to say he had some old photos of Fairbourne Railway so these have been added to the Miniature Railways page in the Railways section.  Richard emailed me to say he would like to paint one of the pictures in the Kings Heath section of South Birmingham Businesses.  I was so impressed that I've included a link in the text for '75 High Street'.  Neil passed on some memories about his grandfather's shop on the corner of Hubert Road and Exeter Road so I have added these to the Selly Oak page, also in South Birmingham Businesses. A sad update to the Halesowen Railway Virtual Trip page marks the passing of Longbridge Station which was demolished this month (June).
23/4/2012	I'm back to digging through the slide collection and came across three great pictures of Highbridge Station so I've added these to the page that can be found in the National Stations section.
16/4/2012	A recent trip to Cardiff (highly recommended, by the way!) allowed me to take four modern views at sites my father visited.  Cardiff General Station (National Stations page), Buses and Trams in Colour and Cardiff (Other Places page) have all been updated.  I also found four broken links on these pages so ammended as many as possible.
19/3/2012	Added Coventry to the Other Places section of the site.  Also added a picture of Rhodes China and Glass store to the Cotteridge section of South Birmingham Businesses.  My thanks to Terry for sharing that picture.
27/2/2012	Added Brownhills to the Midland Area Stations page.
6/2/2012	Added some notes to the Isle of Man Railways page with thanks to Peter.  Also, a couple of comments from Barry have been added to the Bearwood page in South Birmingham Businesses.  Finally, noted that the Longbridge East box is no longer standing on the Halesowen Railway Virtual Trip page.
16/1/2012	Another long overdue addition - a page of past and present photographs from South Birmingham has been added to the Birmingham page.  These are photographs taken by my father coupled with my own modern views.  They were first seen in my first book so if you've got that, they won't be new to you!  Also fixed a couple of broken links.
28/11/2011	A few updates to the Kings Heath page in South Birmingham Businesses.  A visit to a Christmas Fete at Hazelwell Church provided the opportunity to capture some modern views of the three Vicarage Road pictures.  In addition, Delwyn was kind enough to get in touch with some family history re the shoe shop at 50 Poplar Road and provided a splendid view from c.1915.
7/11/2011	It's been a stressful couple of weeks after I received an email from Google saying this site was the source of malicious software!  If you've seen warnings about this, it was because the server my site lives on was hacked and multiple site were affected.  I can't say that my hosting company was of much help, but the site has now been moved to a new server so I hope that's the end of any problems... On a more postive note, today's update sees the addition of an interesting set of pictures of the Isle of Man, located in the Railways section.  It features the Manx Electric Railway, The Isle of Man Railway and (to a very limited extent) the Snaefell Mountain Railway.
10/10/2011	Sorry for the delay, but I promise it's been worth the wait!  I wanted to publish two new pages simultaneously as they compliment each other.  The first is a page all about the new Library of Birmingham and that can be found in the Birmingham Developments section.  The second page features a truly amazing collection of colour slides of the Victorian Central Library and it is accessible from the Birmingham section.  These pictures come from the Geoff Thompson Archive.  Enjoy!
20/8/2011	It's been a while since I updated the site and that's been because I've been struggling to raise the enthusiasm to update some old pages rather than add some new stuff.  When the sun shines on a Saturday or Monday (my normal days for working on the site), I find it hard to be sat on the computer doing a job I don't really want to do! Anyway, an update to the Halesowen Railway section of the site has been on my to-do list for the last 3 years and I've finally got around to it.  Full details are here.
11/7/2011	A bit of Liverpool theme today!  Added Liverpool (Lime Street) to the National Stations page and Liverpool to Other Places.  I also managed to identify the location of the tram at Liverpool that featured on the recently added Trams Outside Birmingham page. Updated the Highbridge Station and Stonebridge Railway pages thanks to feedback from Dave and Penny respectively.
4/7/2011	Added nine modern views of Geoff Thompson's City Centre pictures accessible from the Birmingham page. Note that I am due to give another of my library talks this month.  I will be at Frankley Library at 10:30am on Wednesday July 20th.
4/6/2011	It’s several years since I declared the Trams and Buses section complete.  However, the existence of three pictures of trams that hadn’t made it to the site kept niggling at the back of my mind.  So, finally, the pictures from Liverpool and Llandudno have been added to that section.   Also added some notes about signalling to the Highbridge Station page – thanks to Dave for getting in touch.
16/5/2011	If you are a regular visitor to this page, please accept my apologies for the lack of updates recently.  More DIY jobs have once again robbed me of my spare time.  In addition, the great weather in April and early May had to be enjoyed as it could well have been this years summer! I've updated the Weoley Castle page in South Birmingham Businesses with some comments from John re a 'tornado' in the late 1960s.  If you remember the incident, please get in touch. Also updated the Saltley and Perry Barr station notes in Local Stations P-Z with some memories from Harry. Finally, some new stuff at last.  Highbridge Station has been added to the National Stations page.
18/4/2011	A brief page about the return of the statue of King Edward VII to the city centre has been added to the Birmingham Developments page.
4/4/2011	A few updates today.  I have archived the site history again as it was getting rather large.  The last three years history can now be found here.  Updated the Ledbury By Night page with some feedback from Stephen and Chris.  Also updated the Longbridge page in South Birmingham Businesses as 1563 Bristol Road South has been demolished (thanks to Steve and Elizabeth on the Northfield Past Facebook group for helping with the date of that).  Also in South Birmingham Businesses, one more modern view has been added to Selly Oak for Strathdene Road.  Only one more left to do! Some good news on 'Birmingham Past & Present: In My Father's Footsteps'.  It's back in print but the latest run is only 100 copies so snap one up while you can if you want one!  The publishers have said they will do future runs of as little as 30-50 copies but that can't go on forever as the book will be five years old in December so the 'Present' pictures are already looking more 'Past'... Finally, a long overdue addition for the rail fans.  Tamworth Station is added to the Midland Area Stations section

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