Frances Road lies just left off the Pershore Road as you're heading from 'town' over Breedon Hill towards the centre of Cotteridge; it was built at the turn of the 20th Century by builders local to Cotteridge - the Grant's and the Ferris's.

It is a very ordinary road of some 130ish terraced houses... and a road-surfacing company, a re-upholsterer's, an ex-factory, two ex-corner shops, and an ex-cafe...  Many would say that it's an ugly road with uneven cracked paving slabs that vie for space alongside partially tarmac'd footpaths and an ugly galvanised gate blocking off the entrance to Lifford Lane at the foot of the road.  Yes, Frances Road is not very pretty.  Trees that were planted when the street was in its youth have long since been removed; the only greenery being that of the occasional privet.  The congestion of parked cars is also another huge problem for those of us who have never had the pleasure or privilege of off-road parking.

To me and a handful of other families who still live in Frances Road however, it has provided the hub of home life for us, our children, our parents, our grandparents and in some cases, our great grandparents.  It is perhaps, a comfortable, safe link with the past where long-lasting friendships formed in childhood still flourish.

As a child in the 1960s, many members of my family still lived up and down the road.  At the top end at No.117 was my (Great) Uncle Ernie Hickey (my Nan’s brother).  A little further down at No.75 was Ernie's son -  my Uncle Lenny & Auntie Ellen; they lived opposite my Mom & Dad who were at No.88.  Then further down our side at No.52 lived my Granny and  my Auntie Kate & Uncle Jack (Nan’s unmarried sister & widowed brother)…   and of course at No.44 lived my Nan & Grandad. 

Naturally, many families through the years married into other families on Frances Road and rented or eventually bought a house here…  My Uncle Ernie’s wife Gladys Styles’ brother Fred and family lived at No.71;  Gladys’s sister Nellie Stokes lived down the bottom at No.18  and Fred’s daughter and her family lived at No.78…   Jack (another of my Nan’s brothers) also had in-laws living up the road.  He had married Agnes Richardson (from No.26 at the 1901 Census) whose sister Ellen had married a Charles Miller; their daughter Amy married Len Badger and they too continued to live up the road until their deaths…  Confusing I know, but all the families mentioned above still have descendants or cousins residing in Frances Road.  I don’t however, actually know how unusual Frances Road is in that it still homes many of the offspring of original inhabitants from its beginnings back at the turn of the 19th - 20th Century. 

The 1901 Census, taken on 31 March 1901 in the Hamlet of Cotteridge, Urban District (ward) of Stirchley, Urban District of Kings Norton & Northfield, Ecclesiastical Parish of St Nicholas in the Civil Parish of Kings Norton, Parliamentary Division of East Worcestershire in the Administrative County of Worcestershire is as follows