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Small Heath

Thanks to Andrew Roberts for the picture.

andrew.roberts@bowenstravel.com

 I have been browsing your Birmingham Garages site today and have memories of an interesting Erdington area Garage called Stockland Garage.

This garage was in business for many years right on Stockland Green, adjacent to The Stockland Inn which is now called the Stockland Hotel. It was a large garage and I believe the main part of the garage is still there but I am not sure what it is used for these days.

I don't know the whole history of the garage.
I grew up in the area and remember it very well.  It was run by a family called the McLoughlins. The father and his two sons.   I am not sure when the business first started but it may have been in the early l930's.
I am sure the business would have expanded faster had the Second World War not come along, since many of the houses in the streets behind Stockland Green had garages built on to them. The war, however, postponed any car ownership for several years.

Mr.McLoughlin, senior had a taxi service also and our family used it to go to Snow Hill Station to catch the train for our holidays.  This would have been in the late 1940's/ early 1950's.  Around this time the Garage expanded and went into the holiday tour business. They bought coaches and had an arm of the Garage called Stockland Coaches. They owned several coaches and had many destinations plus day and evening tours.

My brother and some of his friends who were grammar schoolboys at the time, made pocket money in the late l950's cleaning the coaches overnight ready for their next tours. Firstly, they did UK tours and eventually did some Continental tours.
Around this time the McLoughlin's once again branched out and opened a small showroom on the forecourt where they sold new cars....my Father bought his first new car from them in l958, an Austin Cambridge.

I am not sure when the business closed down since I emigrated to Canada in l963 and eventually the garage wasn't operating anymore.
I do know it was a very important part of Stockland Green for several decades.

 There was also a much smaller garage at the junction of Bleak Hill Road and Marsh Hill, Erdington which sold petrol and undertook motor repairs. It was there in the early l940's.

There was also another well known Garage in Erdington High Street called Abbey Garage, this garage would go back to the l930's also.


I have recently come across a photo of a small garage that was located along Brookvale Road close to Tame Road, Witton. The garage was owned by two twin brothers who went to school with my Father. It was a tiny place, neat and well run and I remember it being there in the early l950's.

Sincerely,

Jenny Nicol 

ex Brummie, Vancouver, Canada