January 17th – Enjoying the ride to work today, I took a spin up National Cycle Route 5 from Station Road in Coalpool up to the Butts, in Walsall. This great cycleway runs mostly beside the Ford Brook, today flowing rather impressively. After passing under Walsall and picking up some tributaries on the way, the brook becomes the River Tame. Where the flow dives under Mill Lane, there’s a debris filter installed by the Environment Agency. Both they and the National Rivers Authority, their predecessors, have done much to clean up this formerly massively polluted waterway, not just here, but further south. I don’t know why, but I always find structures like this vaguely intimidating and unsettling. 

Author: BrownhillsBob

I told the truth - but told it bent. Wandering around bemused and ranty since 2007. View all posts by BrownhillsBob