Boldmere

Boldmere is an area of Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England.

A small former village, sometimes credited with being the home of the Spinning Jenny (or Spinning Mule, Spinning Donkey), the revolutionary weaver's device that kicked Britain off along the road to industrialisation.

The 'village' has long since been absorbed into the sprawling conurbation of the formerly discrete towns of North Birmingham, particularly but not limited to that of Sutton Coldfield. Little evidence of its (questionable) historic past remains, but for a few local history books on the subject sold in a couple of stores on the main shopping street and held in the local library.

Boldmere is bordered on all but one side by the urban spread of other former rural villages. Erdington, Short Heath, Gravelly Hill and Tyburn to the south, lining the route into Birmingham; Old Oscott, New Oscott and Kingstanding to the west as gateways to Walsall, Dudley and Wolverhampton; and Wylde Green and Walmley to the east, the last borders before the remaining green belt beyond, with Wishaw and Middleton villages in easy reach, The Belfry, the M42 motorway and recently constructed M6 Toll (originally known as the Birmingham Northern Relief Road or BNRR) as landmarks and links to be found within less than 15 minutes drive. Sutton Coldfield town centre itself lies a couple of miles to the north-east, and beyond are Mere Green and the more upmarket Four Oaks and Little Aston.

Directly north of Boldmere is Sutton Park, and the district's main street (B4142, Boldmere Road) leads directly towards it, via Stonehouse Road, after the crossroads with the A453 (Jockey Road) and Boldmere Gate. At this gate there are several attractions; the fake Royal Navy destroyer to the right (as you enter the park) built on dry land for the benefit of Sea Cadets training in the park, facing Powells pool to the left, an extensive and attractive boating and watersports lake, with a steep and well-landscaped waterfall to drain the pool under the roadway, which is itself in a deeply cut small valley at the point where it passes the lake. On the shore of Powells Pool is La Reserve, a Beefeater restaurant and pub with a pleasant interior and views across the pool, and a very small, slightly run-down funfair. Further along the same road, there are large fields for picnicing, cycling, and the flying of kites and model aeroplanes , plus car parking facilities with footpaths to all other parts of the park.

Boldmere's central roads are Jockey Road (A453) which is one of the main routes from Sutton town centre towards Birmingham, via New Oscott (where the route splits off to follow College Road) and Perry Barr, Jockey Road proper taking a slightly different direction, becoming King's Road and proceeding towards West Bromwich; Chester Road (A452), forming the boundary with Erdington, New and Old Oscott, and Kingstanding, running south again towards, but not into Birmingham (and the M6), and north to Walsall, the A5, and ultimately to Nottingham; Monmouth Drive (unclassified but high quality), which marks the northern border with the park, merging from local roads at the east end and Chester Road at the west, running parallel with Jockey Road, but for a quarter mile of backstreets, for half its length and providing an oversubscribed alternative route into and out of Sutton; and Boldmere Road (B4142), literally the centre of the village, with a well-stocked strip mall selection of shops, banks, wining and dining facilities, and other services, all packed into the quarter mile between Jockey Road and the Antrobus/Highbridge road crossroads. In addition, Birmingham Road (A5127) skirts the eastmost outposts of Boldmere, though arguably it runs through Wylde Green, which blends imperceptably with Boldmere with the Cross-City rail line as a boundary. Jockey Road and/or Monmouth Drive, Chester Road, and Birmingham Road or the railway provide Boldmere's roughly equilateral triangular outline, about a mile and a half to a side, easily visible on local maps even at quite small scales . On a modern display (1024x768) the district can be identified without trouble at 100 miles range in Autoroute, or even 250 with very good quality (1600x1200).

Arguably, for meeting all basic needs, Boldmere is better stocked than Sutton Coldfield itself, as Boldmere has at least three stores that could tentatively come under the banner of 'small supermarket' (Sutton, at the time of writing, no longer has *any* general food store or good variety grocers, Marks and Spencer and an excellent greengrocer-cum-fruiterer notwithstanding). These stores include a well provisioned Spar, a local independent family-run shop, and an Alldays, in addition to two butchers, a greengrocer, a newsagent, pharmacy and three bakeries. This situation is mirrored in miniature at the other end of the road, where a crossroads with Chester Road and Gravelly Lane (also another main, direct route towards Birmingham city centre) marks the boundary with Erdington. Here there is no food store (needs being amply provisioned by a nearby, recently constructed Tesco Express petrol station), but there is a wine bar, chinese takeaway, post office, church, laundrette, and three or four other establishments that occasionally change. Where Antrobus road (leading from Boldmere road) meets Chester road, there is also another 'trendy' bar, and a deceptively large, well stocked garden centre that leads up the steep hill which Antrobus crosses, and both Boldmere Road, Chester Road and Jockey Road skirt the foot of. At the meeting of College and Jockey Roads with Chester Road there is more extensive commercial development, though much of note is just over the border into New Oscott (in popular opinion even if not in fact) - a large Kwik Save, a Homebase, and another fragmented strip-mall, with facilities as diverse as an Indian Takeaway, florists, video rental, electronic music and tuition centre, die-cast model cars, a small local art gallery and offlicense. The jewel in the crown being Princess Retail Park, with an enormous Tesco Extra store (currently being extended to 2 storeys to compete with local competition such as ADSA stores at Minworth and Great Barr), and moderately large Curries electronics, Boots, Marks and Spencers Food Hall, and several independent stores that seem to come and go, except for Au Naturel, a new-age styled decoration, furnishing and accessorising store that has been in place since the building of the estate. Plus, jockey road itself has a small number of establishments, including a BMW Mini and Lexus dealership, guitar shop, barbers, insurance sales, sports/fitness shop, an indian restaurant, another small newsagents, and lawnmower repair!

A non-exhaustive list simply of Boldmere's core facilities (that the author can remember at this point), i.e. on Boldmere road or very near/facing it include: Two Post Offices, Library, Used Car Dealership, New Motorcycle Dealership (multi-marque), HSBC and Barclays banks, a Harvester restaurant including a small, underpublicised Travelodge, at least three public houses, several grocers, bakers, butchers and newsagents, pharmacist, two chinese takeaways, one sit-in chinese restaurant, at least two indian takeaways, a very high quality sit-in indian restaurant, chip shop, three mini supermarkets, key cutters and cobblers, several furniture/carpet/accessory stores including two large ones and a small bespoke craftsman, at least four charity/second-hand shops, a pound store, specialist hi-fi retailer and dealer, optician, travel and insurance agencies, pet shop, antiques dealer, window and bathroom fitter, driving license testing centre, power tools retail and hire shop, an off-license, estate agency, laundrette, undertaker's agent, office supplies store, computer supplies and repairs shop, and at least five churches either on or within 3 minutes walk of the road (including CoE, catholic, methodist, and united reformed church). Phew!

The village has relatively little in the way of schooling facilities, but still manages to offer up St Nicholas Catholic Primary, St Michaels C of E primary, and the less denominational New Oscott Junior and Infant school, very near the border of the two zones, in backstreets near Monmouth drive. For any other primary school, or for secondary education, children have to travel further afield, such as to Sutton for Girls- and Boys- only grammar schools (Sutton Girls and Bishop Vesey), or across to Walmley, Wylde Green and Falcon Lodge for comprehensives (John Willmott, Fairfax, Bishop Walsh, Plantsbrook..).

In the area are also Wylde Green and Chester Road stations on the Cross-City line that links Lichfield and Four Oaks with Longbridge and Redditch via Birmingham New Street Station. Services on this line are frequent and fast, when they are running properly, which is not a common occurrence.

Boldmere is also home to Highbury Theatre, a small establishment specialising in youth performances and amateur dramatics.

The area has traditionally been a slightly lower-class but very pleasant end of Sutton to live in, but recent yob culture invasions have taken off some of the shine.