File:SCENES FROM OLD CRADLEY7.jpg

Summary
A view down Drews Holloway, part of the main A456 road from Cradley to Halesowen, bending to the right at the junction with Colman Hill, taken in the early 1920s. The young girl in the doorway of 'Hillcrest' looks as if she might be waving to the photographer. Does anyone recognise the type of motor car? Hillcrest was built in about 1900 for the chain manufacturer Frank Sykes and was later owned by Alf Ryland, a Cradley Heath manufacturer, and finally by the Blackwell family. In 1964 it was demolished to make way for the proposed A456 relief road, a fate it shared, tragically, with Park House in Colley Gate. Park House dated back to the sixteenth century, with further additions in the 1680s, and was demolished in the 1970s. The road proposals were abandoned, but not before this unnecessary destruction. --- our thanks to Dave Vickers for this image