The First "Metric" houses

Birmingham built it's first metric houses - where all the dimensions were in millimetres as opposed to feet and inches - on the Chelmsley Wood Estate back in the 70's.

It was a block of houses built by C.Bryant and Sons (Bryants) in a system called "System 4 Metric".

I was the engineer who set out - that is placed it in position on the ground from the architects plans -this first metric block. I also took the pictures of the events that followed. So, sadly, I am on none of them.

There was quite a performance that day. The great and the good of the city of Birmingham and Bryants came out to the site and buried an imperial "staff" - a folding 6ft ruler - in the foundations with great pomp and many speeches.

You can see below a number of pictures taken on the day. What day? I can hear you ask... hmmm... I cant remember. Perhaps Bryants could help.




Cllr BEAUMONT-DARK burying the imperial staff ( 6ft rule) in the foundations of the first Metric block of houses in Britain.








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Christopher Bryant with Cllr BEAUMONT-DARK - others unknown



In the foreground - George Tilbrook, the Site Agent (manager) talking to Maudsley, the City Architect for Birmingham. Others unknown.

This is the groundworks crew - excluding me who worked on the site. Left to right 1. not known. 2. George Tilbrook. 3.Alan ? Senior Engineer. 4. Chris Higgins (Engineer). 5. Ernie Harris (Engineer). Rest unknown except man with leveling staff. He was my chainman (assistant). His name was Joe from Northern Ireland.

The whole groundworks crew. The black guy (Ken) was the most amazing machine driver I have ever seen. He could make a 20 ton machine dance. Spectacular and a joy to watch.
You can see where the "staff" was buried and also the layout of the walls on the raft foundation of the block. The green lines show the dividing walls between houses.