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Great Bridgeford
Great Bridgeford maps
Historic maps of Great Bridgeford and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Great Bridgeford maps
Great Bridgeford photos
We have no photos of Great Bridgeford, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Shallowford| Aston| Stafford| Eccleshall| Stone| Gnosall| Swynnerton| Oulton| Norbury Junction| Tixall| Milford
Great Bridgeford area books
Displaying 1 of 4 books about Great Bridgeford and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Great Bridgeford
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Staffordshire memories
Norton Bridge
I remember Norton Bridge from 1969 when there were two shops. One that was part of the post office, the Railway Inn pub and the railway staion. Sadly all that exists out of all these now, is just the pub. We made our own fun in the 70's, plenty of fields, a river to go swimming, and pools to go fishing. There were no computers, Xbox or Playstations - there was never a boring moment. My dad was born there 1938 and still lives there, those were the days...
Swimming Saturdays
I received a half-crown (2/6d) pocket money per week. This enabled me to travel from Gnosall by train every Saturday (8d return), pay for entrance to the brine swimming baths for the afternoon, (wonderful memories) and have enough for either a cup of hot chocolate, or use of the dryer for my (long) hair, afterwards. The hot chocolate usually won!
Public Disaster!!!!
This photograph is taken from the Lichfield Road. Veering off to the right in the distance is Greengate Street, and to the left, round the far corner of the library, the Newport Road. I used the library often. It had an annexe a little further up and 'off' the Newport road, past the Odeon Cinema, containing the library's music collection. I spent an even greater amount of time there. It was wonderful. Everything from Scarlatti to Lead Belly. What an education! (This was in my mid-teens.) You could actually borrow these records, take them home and play them on your Dansette if you wanted to, and/or listen to them in cubicles, rather like a 'language laboratory' as we used to call them. Then guess what? They moved the public library to the Shire Hall area, and when I asked where the records were, was told (somewhat disparagingly) that the collection had been AUCTIONED OFF!
The Music Library - Pride of Stafford!
The music library was in Friars Terrace until 1994, when it moved to the top floor of the library at the Green, which had been the Art Gallery before that moved to the Shire Hall.
By 1994 the LP collection was little used - it had been the biggest in any library in the UK. By 1994 we had the biggest CD collection in the UK, covering every possible kind of music. Stafford was the first library to lend CDs in the country, starting in 1983.
The Music Library moved to the Shire Hall in 1999 and is still one of the best CD collections in the UK (or world some say), priding itself on getting pretty well anything for anybody. It is one of the only county council services which is at the top of the government charts.
LPs were sold off in library sales because they were not wanted and were no longer being manufactured. We had no complaints.
Happy Memories
I was born in Foregate Street, the home of my grandparents, in 1951. I left Stafford in 1953 and returned in 1960 to live in the north end of the town. I well remember playing on the 'Witches hat' with my friends, paddling in the childrens pool, I spent some very happy times in Victoria Park. Mum used to take us down to the park on a fine sunny day, jam sandwiches and a bottle of pop, Happy Memories. I now live in the Lake District and love it but Stafford will always hold some very special memories for me. Does anyone have a picture of old Foregate Street?
Brine Baths
I remember as a child and teenager going to the Brine Baths with my brother and friends, what a wonderful building it was, swimming was never the same after the new baths were built, another fine old building was lost.
Learning to Swim
I remember visiting the Brine Baths from our Junior School - there was a small pool (quite chilly) where we were all taught to swim. We then graduated to the large pool, where we still used to go from the High School.
My brother learnt to swim when he was thrown in at the deep end of the large pool (not so much Health and Safety around in those days). It was literally a case of sink or swim.
It was a lovely building, which we probably didn't appreciate at the time, but obviously in need of updating internally. Has it now been demolished on the altar of modernity?
