COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY

There was a post office in Greet a century ago, and 30 shops are listed between St. John's and Percy Roads. They included 5 grocers, 4 butchers, a fried fish dealer, a tripe dresser, 2 greengrocers, 2 shoe-makers, 2 dress-makers, an iron-monger, and a pawn-broker, a doctor and a chemist, dealers in furniture and earthenware, a beer retailer, a coal merchant, a laundress, and a painter of flags and banners.

There were five unspecified shopkeepers and a private school. All these premises were converted terrace houses. In the '80's and '90's some rows were designed as shops, notably 'Warwick Market'; but conversions have continued to the present. On Stratford Road large villas became shops, forecourts replacing front gardens, during the same period.

'Eastbourne Market' was purpose-built in '99. Two shopping lines developed, from Sparkbrook to the 'Mermaid' junction and on The Hill about the tram terminus. They have grown steadily towards each other, and Springfield has developed from small beginnings early this century. The Greet line has remained fairly static. Corner shops are to be found about the district, rarely purpose-built, and some have been re-converted.

When steam-trams brought the green Cole valley within reach of Birmingham's hordes, public houses were built on what was then the edge of town to cater for them Such were the new 'Mermaid', the Sportsman, Cherry Arbour, Greet Inn, Wagon & Horses, and - as the brick tide moved on southward - the College Arms and the Britannia at Tyseley.

Apart from such rural crafts as joinery, smithing, brewing, and brick-making, there was no industry in Greet until '80's. The fog signal and fireworks firm, Wilders, tucked safely away along Seeleys Lane, employed few men. Then an umbrella factory opened on Percy Road.

There was a second fireworks factory by the Cole south of Formans Road. But apart from those engaged in brick-making and building, most workers walked to Small Heath factories or trammed to Birmingham firms.

The James Cycle Co. on Tomey Road provided local employment before WW I, when there was a great expansion of the B. S. A. and other firms, and industrial growth on the Hay Hall estate. Greet and Tyseley Brickworks went out of use in the '20's. Light engineering and electrical works multiplied and grew - on Percy Road, on Warwick Road just west of the river and sporadically to Stockfield, on Weston and Reddings Lanes, and in a large area north of Tyseley.

A number of small concerns fitted themselves into yards, gardens and waste patches about the Mermaid. There were notable extensions to the Serck, Brooke Tool, M. E. M., and Lucas works in the '30's. The wrongly-named Tyseley Industrial Estate has been developed since WW II about Seeleys Road. Burbury Brickworks closed in the late '50's, and the enormous pit has been infilled with industrial waste.