Looking at Lode Lane and Elmdon Park in Solihull circa 1900s

Living on the busy Lode Lane in Solihull its hard to imagine it any different than the busy road it is today. Elmdon Park however is a haven of peace and still very much unspoilt by so called progress. These postcards are all from photographs taken in the early part of the twentieth century.

Yes Lode Lane was just a dirt track surrounded by country side and farm land. Our house was built in the early 1950s and the land was part of the farm here. Which is why when digging out our pond a few years ago we came across a tractor's axle and wheels. Its still there as impossible to dig out, so we just moved the pond a little further along.

Another view of Lode Lane on a postcard sent in December 1905. It was sent to a Miss Davies of 1 South View, Illesly from a M Mitchell thanking her for the card and present. How times have changed. now we would send an email or post a thanks on Facebook. But this type of information will vanish into the endless computer memory and be lost in time. If ever we were to loose the use of electricity and computers, how many photographs and memories would go just like that. Not so impossible that it could happen.

A postcard of Elmdon Park circa 1900s. Not sure which part as can not recall a fence as such around the park. But it does remain unchanged and a haven for wild life. We lived in Haymills when young and would walk to Elmdon Park with a picnic and sit at the top of the hill. Great fun rolling down the hill and playing in the trees. We moved in the mid 1970s to a house just around the corner from the park but as a teenager we visited the local pubs more than the park those days! Sometimes don't you wish you could turn back time.....