Opening of Chelmsley Wood Shopping Centre 1971

On Wednesday 7th April 1971 Her Majesty The Queen officially opened the new shopping centre at Chelmsley Wood, which was described as having space for around 70 shops, six stores and a number of boutiques.

Most of Chelmsley’s 40,000 population turned out for the Royal visit. Large crowds gathered along Bosworth Drive and the precinct itself to watch as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh toured the centre and unveiled a commemorative plaque on the clock tower in Greenwood Square. Building firm Bryants, co-developers of the shopping centre with Samuel Properties, had provided local schools with six gross (864) of flags.

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7 April 2021 0

3rd October 1915

Albert Herbert Farrow, who seems to have been known as Herbert, was born in Roughton, Norfolk on 25th August 1885 to parents Jonathan and Sarah Farrow. He enlisted as a regular soldier with the Coldstream Guards on 10th January 1905 and served five years with the colours, including two years in Egypt. He then joined the Reserve, when he became a gamekeeper. On the 1911 census he is shown as living at Marston Green and his occupation is recorded as under gamekeeper.

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3 October 2015 0

“A mountain of chip butties…”

I love this story from someone who moved to Kingshurst in 1972.

Every Friday my friends and I piled all the kids into big old-fashioned prams and walked over to the new shopping centre at Chelmsley Wood. We’d do our grocery shopping and then buy a big bag of chips, a loaf of bread and a tub of margarine and walk down to the river by the police station. We’d take off the kids’ shoes and socks and let them paddle while we made a mountain of chip butties. We’d sit them all down with a chip butty and pass a big bottle of cheap fizzy pop around and sit on the river bank. Our kids loved it and thought they’d had a super day out!

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21 October 2013 0

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