Page 30 - Colin Wheeler's Memories

Redditch Heritage My Palace Theatre and other Memories

These builders had a large reserve of self employed sub contractors to call upon

and they included plumbers, painters, plasterers, electricians, glaziers, roofers,
and blacksmiths, all well known but names far to numerous to mention.

When additional transport was required they could call upon three local firms

owned by Arthur Swain Senior, Ernie Cater and Arthur Bennett.

The two local builder’s merchants were A D Foulkes, situated in the former

Tarlton’s builder’s yard in Peakman Street and the Redditch Building supplies in
Smallwood Street, opposite the SWS Electric Cooling Station.

Initially, local bricks were used for the house building and they were collected
from Ferney Hill at Redditch, also brickworks at Studley, Earlswood, and
Worcester. Later, however, when the giant brickworks at Stewartby in

Bedfordshire went into full production “London” bricks were extensively used
because they were lighter, of constant quality and cheaper. They were used on

all the police houses, including those in Vicarage View, which I believe were
constructed by Wheeler and Mansell, a Bromsgrove company.

Page: 30 © Redditch Heritage 2018