Abbey Hostel

I grew up in Birmingham Road, Redditch, a few minutes walk from the Abbey Hostel. The hostel was originally built primarily for workers at the High Duty Alloys (now Metis Aerospace) "shadow factory", but as it was so important to find accommodation for workers for the war effort, I would think that residents worked at other Redditch factories too, so as a draughtsman it is very understandable that your uncle would have been a resident there.

On at least two occasions the hostel began to be scaled down in size, but also on two occasions Soviet forces invading neighbouring countries caused a huge influx of refugees into the UK, and many were housed at hostels like the Abbey. There were many other hostels of almost identical design throughout the country, the only other one I have ever seen in any detail was in High Wycombe.

The accommodation comprised single rooms in single-storey asbestos-cement prefabricated buildings, strictly segregated by gender. The huts had all the obvious facilities, including central heating, which must otherwise have been a rarity in Redditch at that time.

The large central building, which was just over a roundabout in the entrance drive which is now Fishing Line Road, had a large function room which held regular dances, the reflections from the revolving glitter ball in the ceiling being able to be seen from my home. This room, much later, became the Cloud Nine night club, and the cause of endless vandalism, drug abuse and disorder in the area until forced to close.

Behind the function room was the dining room, which presumably must have served meals over a long time period as a high proportion of the original residents would have been working shifts. Behind the dining room was a laundry, and a large central boiler room which supplied the entire site with hot water.

Just off the approach drive, approximately where the pet food department of Sainsburys now is, was a separate small bungalow, again of asbestos-cement construction, which was occupied by a succession of managers. These appeared to rule the Hostel very strictly as would have been necessary, and over very many years there was less "trouble" at the Abbey Hostel than a single Saturday night at Cloud Nine could produce!

The first clearance of accommodation was when the (then) GPO Telephone Exchange was built on the right-hand side of the drive. The GPO said at the time that this was deliberately built as a single storey so that at a later date further stories could be added, to make it the main exchange for Redditch. Fairly soon, of course, plans for the New Town were announced, and a much bigger exchange was built at Headless Cross.

A further Abbey Hostel memory is that at one time, a narrow drive-way existed from Birmingham Road to the field which is the present site of the PO Sorting Office and NEW College. In the 1950s, this was the sports ground for the Allcocks factory, but seem to rapidly fall into use, to the great pleasure of my Sister and myself, who took it over as "our" playground. This drive ran through what is now the rear of the Telephone Exchange, but could also be reached by a small gate from the hostel. On Sundays, a large van drove down to the gate, and opened it's rear doors to reveal all sorts of eastern European sweets and smoked meats, and very rapidly a queue would form back to the Hostel itself. During the Cold War, of course, the Hostel came to house a high proportion of refugees from eastern Europe, whereas when it was first set up probably the highest proportion of residents were from the Irish Republic. Many of the residents from all these periods came to settle and integrate into Redditch, and it is still not uncommon to be told "I lived at the Abbey Hostel when I first came to Redditch".

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