Kingstanding on film

The isolation hospital on College Road was surrounded by the Kingstanding and Perry Common estates by the 1930s. On 3 May 1967 firemen set it alight, building by building, watched by police, press and a group of protesters with banners.

Read the full story of the Witton smallpox hospital.

A boxing ring set up in the middle of the packed greyhound stadium. Ron Barton and Mel Brown fight while men in suits watch from the ringside; between rounds a trainer works on his boxer in the corner. The fight was stopped in the sixth round and Barton was declared the winner. Pathé never used this footage in a newsreel.

The ground opened on Aldridge Road in 1929 as the home of Birchfield Harriers. In 1954 Diane Leather ran the first women’s mile under five minutes there. It was demolished in October 2025. More about Perry Barr stadium.

Inside the Kynoch works at Witton. Rolls of tape are threaded through the machines, the metal teeth are fixed on, and women finish and test each zip by hand. The film opens with a model showing off a skirt whose outer layer unzips to become a cape.

After an explosion at Whittall Street in 1859, a powder magazine and percussion-cap works was licensed out at Witton; George Kynoch took it over in 1862. By the time of this film the works was part of ICI. From 1983 half of the site was turned into an industrial estate.

Technicians at Fort Dunlop test a Dunlop aircraft tyre for pressure, friction and weight. The clapperboard keeps appearing, because this is the cameraman’s raw footage rather than a finished newsreel.

The original Fort Dunlop building opened in 1916, part of one of the largest factories in the world, and closed in 1981. It reopened in 2006 after a £35 million conversion by Urban Splash.

Eleven years later, Pathé went back for Dunlop’s new high-speed test machine. It copies what happens to an aircraft’s tyres on take-off and landing: the tyre is lowered onto a spinning drum under heavy pressure, while engineers watch the test from a control panel behind glass.

The camera rises to show the Gravelly Hill Interchange from above, then follows one car around it. The car starts driving backwards and keeps changing direction, as if it is lost in the tangle of roads.