West Heath, West Midlands

West Heath is an area of Birmingham, England, between Kings Norton, Northfield, Hopwood and Longbridge. A small suburb with a Catholic church, Anglican church, Baptist church, post office, opticians, doctors' surgery, nursery, rehabilitation hospital, old persons' home, primary school, two community centres and other basic buildings. It is served by Northfield Station for rail connections, National Express West Midlands bus #45 terminates at West Heath from Birmingham city centre and bus #49 connects West Heath to Solihull. As the name suggests it used to be heathland until the 1950s when many suburbs were added to the prosperous city of Birmingham. Many houses and schools were built in the 1950s although some date to the late 19th century.

Mike Skinner, aka The Streets was raised in West Heath and is one of the suburb's most famous residents, along with Ian Lavender of Dad's Army fame (Private Frank Pike: the wearer of the claret and blue scarf depicting loyalty to his real life favourite local football team Aston Villa [http://www.tv.com/ian-lavender/person/62798/biography.html Ian Lavender Bio - Ian Lavender Biography - Ian Lavender Stories ] ] ).Fact|date=February 2007. As a young girl, Dame Barbara Cartland also lived in West Heath.

External links

* [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/westheathlibrary West Heath Library]
* [http://www.sbrs.org.uk South Birmingham Amateur Radio Society]
(Based in West Heath Community Centre, Hampstead House West Heath)

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