[Dingle-Dingle]

CALLING BAGGIE BOMBER...

Bomber, you mentioed in your post "the stone archway" on the M5 roundabout...  I have often seen that and wondered what it was all about. Do you know the history of it at all. I suspect it may have perhaps been an entrance to an old building or something.

The area east from Roebuck Lane to the borough boundary has been developed mainly in recent years and as an industrial estate. An ancient tree known as the Three Mile Oak formerly stood on the north side of the main road near the boundary; by the 1830s it had disappeared, but the name was preserved by the near-by inn and toll-gate. (fn. 172) Street House at the corner of Halford's Lane and the Birmingham road occurs from 1661. In 1818 it was the home of Joseph Halford, who later moved to Charlemont Hall. Between c. 1833 and c. 1846 Henry Halford, an iron merchant, was living there. It was rebuilt about that time and by the 1850s was known as the Hawthorns. It was made into the Hawthorns Hotel in 1903 to serve the patrons of the Hawthorns football ground on the opposite side of Halford's Lane. (fn. 173) The ground had become the home of West Bromwich Albion Football Club in 1900. (fn. 174) Halford's Lane takes its name from the Halford family, being earlier known variously as Street House Lane, Bowling Alley Lane, and Brasshouse Lane. (fn. 175) There is a motorway access point where the M5 passes under Birmingham Road; the classical stone gateway of Arch Lodge, formerly an entrance to Sandwell Park, has been preserved on the roundabout. A new road was opened from the roundabout to the southern part of Roebuck Lane in Smethwick as part of the southern ring road. The borough boundary with Smethwick was altered in 1966 when the Albion area on either side of Halford's Lane, until then in Smethwick, was taken into West Bromwich instead of becoming part of the new borough of Warley; the railway line then became the boundary. (fn. 176) A small area including a stretch of the M5 motorway and a portion of the ring road around the junction with Roebuck Lane was transferred to Warley. (fn. 177)

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sta...l17/pp4-11

DD