Author Topic: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)  (Read 6047 times)

kjam

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Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« on: December 05, 2015, 09:53:10 PM »
Hi


I have found out some long lost family members lived in Dingle Mead.  Has anyone heard of this place / area and can tell me more about it?  Is it a block of flats own by the council?  or residential housing?  an estate?  Any information would be appreciated I am keen to learn more.  If you also have any photos that would be great.

Phil

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2015, 12:14:41 PM »
Hi Kjam

Welcome to you, as far as I can make out Dingle Mead was in an area known as the Allens Croft Estate which mostly consisted of pre fabricated buildings just after the war, these were superseded by a mixture of flats and housing at a later date. Then later still in the 80's I think a lot of the flats were replace with low rise dwellings.

Dingle Mead ran close to the Stratford upon Avon canal and so when the area was revamped the new road that replaced Dingle Mead was called Boatmans Reach, if you want to look it up on Google the postcode is B14 6QZ.

On the attached map Dingle Mead is centre Left.
Phil died in 2020. RIP.

kjam

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2015, 01:18:21 PM »
Wow that is fantastic thank you so much Phil that is handy to know, I am now one step more closer to understanding more about the area my relative lived (until his death in late 80s).  Also I can finally pinpoint the location on a map which I hope to visit the area sometime next year to see more though I am pretty sure a lot of development took place after the late 80s but just the sense of being in the same place he may have walked is enough.   

Next step would be locating any of my possible family but one step at a time   ;D
Thank you so much.

AWJD

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2015, 07:23:57 PM »
Hi kjam.

In the 1960's, the bottom of Allens Croft Road was one of my favourite haunts. In those days, the area below Brandlewood Park Road over towards Lifford Reservoir and the canal was rough ground where we used to get up to all sorts of mischief. I can just about remember the prefabs but it was a pretty rough area down there. Towards the top of Allens Croft road was the Pineapple Farm estate which was a council estate as far as I can remember. I may be doing it a bit of a injustice but I think Dingle Mead must have been a bit of a strange, out of the way sort of place jutting into the waste ground.

I'll see if I can find out a bit more about the place. What period do you think your relative lived there?

AWJD

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2015, 08:26:40 PM »
Hi kjam.

Just found this picture of the Brandwood Park Road prefabs from an old thread. Allens Croft Road is on the left and the picture is looking down Brandwood Park Road. According to the previous thread, the taller buildings in the background are flats in Dingles Mead. The canal would be towards the top right of the picture.

kjam

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2015, 10:28:42 PM »
Thanks AWJD your description is helping to put some more details on what the area look liked back then I found thanks to Phil what that area looks like now and it does look lovely definitely in total contrast to what it was before, I also saw part of a news article mentioning that the area was quite rough hence the reason some redevelopment took place.  At the moment I know my relative lived there in the 80s until his passing in 1988, I am not yet sure how many years they had lived in Dingle Mead prior to 1988 but I hope to try and find out.
Was this area quite community orientated (in terms did everyone know each other?)  where I grew up in London our estate was which was lovely as everyone knew each other and assisted where possible?  Do you know when dingle Mead was demolished?
 
 Any other little bits of information you can glean would be fantastic though you guys have already helped to give me a bit of a visual on the area where as yesterday I had none.  So thank you so much.   
PS.  Thank you for the photo I came across it earlier today, to say I am doing a happy dance is an understatement, hopefully I can locate some of Dingle Mead which are closer too.

Lee_B

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2016, 10:46:52 AM »
Hi Kjam,

I Lived on dingle mead road between around 1989 to 1993 as a kid before i moved to Australia and have fond memorys of the area. The Road was full of multi storey flats and was well known as a poorer area. As a child it felt like a safe place and all of us kids used to play in the streets and get up to all kinds of mischeif but it is some of my best memories of living in England. Some of the building and flats had boarded up windows and the stairs and corridors between the flats where a mixture of metal and white concrete and always seemed cold. There was a communaI garden for each building with the canal running over the back fences I have many more memories of this place and i was shocked to find out it doesn't even exist anymore and is totally unrecognizable on google maps. I was hoping to go back and visit one day but it would just be a different world as what i remember.

Angelcynn

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2016, 10:33:41 PM »
Hi All


My lifelong mate lived in Dingle Mead. I used to visit him when he lived there with his family between 1967 and when he moved out in 1976. It was a fairly close knit little community situated in a small cul de sac. The flats were not high rise having only 2 or 3 storeys as I recall. I remember the people in one of the flats opposite to my mate used to have their Christmas decorations up by the last week of September - much to our amusement. You could access the canal tow path and we spent hours messing around on the towpath. It was the sort of place where the neighbours would drop in for a cuppa and a chat. The whole area has been totally redeveloped since I used to visit there. I also remember the prefabs on Allens Croft Road - some friends of my parents lived in one of them. The people that lived in them really got attached to them as I remember!

Jonathan Bardell

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2018, 09:39:52 AM »
We used to live in Dingle Mead in the 1960's. Have in recent times re-visited where it was and where we used to play but its largely gone, just one or two landmarks left. It was a great playground round there with our back garden backing onto the canal where we could catch newts and sticklebacks with fishing nets. Also Sturge chemical works where we would climb over the mounds of ? limestone ? or some other white rubble and nick magnetic rubber to trade at school. There was a footpath at the end of Dingle Mead where you turned left for the canal or right towards Reaside Crescent where my friend Steven lived in a prefab ( they are long gone  ). The place, as previously noted by someone else, was very much down market which is why presumably it has since been demolished. My Dad instantly regretted moving in there immediately but as kids we felt none of that. It was a great playground and we felt safe

countrylad

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2018, 02:27:15 PM »
I didn't know this area was called Dingle Mead. I often think about the area and what it is like now. I would have visited there in the early to mid 60's. Dad had a friend there.


His friend He lived in a prefab at the bottom of the estate. He was always tinkering with an old BSA  motorbike and sidecar that was parked on the drive of the prefab. If I remember right, he was Pat (Jack) worked at Bakelite, his wife could have been called Shiela, they had two children boy and a girl, I can only remember the girls name, Theresa we were about the same age and played together, while our dads messed with the motorbike.


countrylad

Rob1973

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Re: Dingle Mead (Kings Heath B14)
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2018, 10:52:29 PM »
I lived in Reeves rd, and also Reaside crst in the mid 80s to early 90s. We spent a lot of time playing around the Canal that runs along the back gardens of what were the three storey flats in Dinglemead. You could cut through a pathway at the bottom of Dinglemead and go through a gap in the fence that took you to the reservoir. The other end of the reservoir was some sort of factory that as kids we thought made toothpaste for some reason? Up from that was a swing bridge across the canal,where we used to charge the canal boats (Bardges) to open the bridge for them to save them stopping and getting off and doing it themselves. The other side of the swing bridge was a big field which used to be great for sledging in the snow as it had big verges going down onto the field. If you follow the canal to the top of Brandwood Rd, you will find what they called the 1/4 mile tunnel/Bridge. It was pitch black and very spooky if you ever got the chance to go through it. We took the workmens bardge for a little trip through it one day! We had friends who lived in Dinglemead and Family across the rd in Newick grove. Opposite Dinglemead just up the hill slightly used to be a Pub, can't remember the name, and the shops around the corner still look the same on Google maps as they did back then. Happy childhood memories from my years living around this area, and loads of friends. Looking back I now know it was a very poor area, but everyone was in the same boat and money couldn't buy me the memories I have of a happy and very active childhood in the 80s and 90s. Apple Scrumping, Brook jumping, BMX's and scootecks,  Getting up at 4am to go down to Stirchley to earn some money helping on the milk rounds (A Runner). Playing curbbies in the rd and tracking around the estate, building Go karts out of old prams, car washing on a Saturday, wagging school a lot to play Super Mario in the small Arcade in Stirchley, or Rygar in the cafe in Kings heath. Going to Pete's boys club up by the Red Lion in the school grounds behind it, where for 15p entrance you could play on a full size snooker table and a six foot pool table, table tennis, darts and other stuff for hours on the evenings twice a week. And he also had a Great camp site at Earlswood where you could go camping for like 30p per night, get covered in smoke building your own camp fires out of broken wooden pallets, and cook your own grub! Great, Great adventures of a 80s, 90s child, something my children will never get the chance to experience! Wow, I got totally carried away inmy own memories then, but please do add more comments if you too spent time in or around this area.


 

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