Capturing, preserving and sharing Solihull's history. Also commemorating local casualties from the First World War #SolihullRemembers
I set about writing this Blog in September 2021 in the hope of bringing together local history and the community. I set out to share what has been one of the most interesting parts of my work as a member of staff at Hobs Moat Library, and that was talking to a customer who has been with us from the start since we opened in 1957.
Continue reading “Sparkhill Housing Association, Ebrington Avenue”
On 13th July 1969, the first new homes in “the Village of the Seventies” at Cheswick Green were offered for sale by the Greaves Organisation, who built some 550 homes in the village as part of its initial development. The developer had purchased land from around 100 individual owners to enable the redevelopment of a site where around 60 per cent of the existing dwellings, mostly erected since the 1920s, had been deemed unfit for habitation.
Continue reading “Cheswick Green: the village of the 70s”
The housing development at Kingshurst Hall Estate was the first time that Birmingham Corporation had ever built dwellings outside the city boundaries. It was also the first time that the council had a housing scheme that included owner-occupied housing as well as council housing.
It was an “overspill” housing estate, one of many created in the 1950s on the outskirts of large towns and cities to help relieve overcrowding in urban areas. The intention was to move people from decaying inner cities to better conditions in more rural areas.
They Made It Happen! exhibition in the Heritage Gallery on the first floor of The Core Library, Solihull from July-September 2018 celebrated the self-build housing associations which were set up by people so desperate for a home of their own to rent that they built their own, and then rented it from the housing association. At the time, they had no expectation of being able to buy the houses although, when regulations were relaxed a few years later, most were subsequently able to buy.
Continue reading “Self-build housing in Solihull”
Solihull Life 