Off to the races - at Bromford Bridge in Birmingham
Jan 22 2010 By Chris Upton
The move was a risky one, given the failure of a number of earlier ventures. Most recently, the course at Four Oaks, despite considerable investment in grandstands, paddocks and stables, had folded after only ten years or so. Four Oaks too was subsequently swallowed up by a property developer.
Bromford Bridge, however, bucked the trend. Perfectly placed between the city and the countryside, and between Birmingham and Castle Bromwich, Bromford Bridge succeeded in attracting both the masses and the classes, the latter accommodated in a fine grandstand, which was later burnt down by the Suffragettes.
The course also catered for flat racing and Steeplechase, and despite its boggy setting beside the River Tame, the course thrived. (Ironically, in the summer months the ground tended to be too dry and hard.) There was a temporary halt during the Second World War, when Bromford Bridge was handed over to the military as an anti-aircraft station and a stores depot, but once the war was over the Birmingham course was up and racing once more.
But just to prove this was Birmingham, they also held car auctions on the course, and staged the occasional cross-country events too. In 1949 the company which ran the course - the Birmingham Racecourse Co. - felt confident enough to buy the freehold of the place for £85,000.
In November 1958 Bromford staged the most expensive race in its history, a two-and-a-half mile handicap worth almost £2,500 to the winner.
So what went wrong so quickly? For one thing, Bromford Bridge was no longer attracting the well-heeled punter. Fort Dunlop did not provide a suitably alluring backdrop for the country set, and the city and its industries were beginning to creep just a little too close. For another, the hard winters of the early 1960s scuppered many a race card, eating into profits. Six out of the eight January meetings up to 1965 had to be called off, and by then average race attendances were down to 5,000.
They shoot racecourses, don’t they? The Birmingham Racecourse Company had already rejected an earlier offer from a consortium of oil companies, who wanted Bromford as a oil depot, when the city council came along with an offer of £1.25 million to buy the course for a housing estate. It was an offer neither the company, nor the shareholders, could refuse, and in June 1985 Birmingham said farewell to horse-racing.
Bromford Bridge, then, swiftly became a fond memory.
But two features remain to mark its place in local history. The red and white winning-post still stands in a children’s playground on Bromford Drive, while the iron posts which marked out the paddock survive too.
The horses, however, have galloped off into history.
