Hello Riverboy
I came across your post when searching for references to a blacksmith / shoeing forge in the Maypole / Druids Lane area. I am working as a photographer volunteer on a project run the University of Birmingham called the Birmingham Grid 2017 which is attempting to re-take a 1000 or more photographs of Birmingham that were taken originally by a lady called Phyllis Nicklin during the late 50's through to the early 70's. One of Phyllis's pictures that I would like to volunteer to re-take is of a Shoeing Forge (dated 1959) that is described as being in Druids Lane. The forge is long gone and the original photograph itself does not offer to many clues as to where precisely the photograph was taken.
Would you be able to help me to identify the exact location of the forge?
The original picture can be accessed via the project's web site ... if you search on birmingham photographic grid [/size] (I don't seem to be able to post a link) you should be able to see a link to the project's home page. From there the pink Nicklin Project Locatons button will take you to a page that lists the areas of Birmingham that were photographed by Phyllis ... from there you will see under Other Areas a button for Druids Heath & Maypole which will take you to a list of locations. The forge location is MP 7 Maypole, Shoeing Forge, Druids Lane, Alcester Road. A click on the description will take you to the original photo. The photo page does contain a Google Map reference of the picture's location but I have found many of these to be inaccurate. On the page you will see the names of the volunteers against each photo ... my name is Brian Burnett (I live locally in Hollywood).
Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Best Regards
Brian