Author: BrownhillsBob

I told the truth - but told it bent. Wandering around bemused and ranty since 2007.

March 31st – this chicken shed/barn stands in Raikes Lane, Between Lynn, Shenstone and Chesterfield. I only noticed it recently. Over the road there’s a large, modern chicken farm, and I suspect this to be it’s antecedent. I think it’s one of the oldest such steel sheet structures I’ve ever seen, and wonder how old it actually is. The frame seems to be timber and girder, and I don’t think the roof is original. The bolts holding the sheeting on look very old, as do the window frames. A curiosity buried in the backlanes.

March 31st – Just off Gravelly Lane in Stonnall, an unnamed track runs behind Stonnallhouse Farm to Lower Stonnall. In this lovely, bucolic spot, some scumbag has dumped a couple of of sofas and some unwanted building materials, right beside an anti-flytipping sign. Did you pay some nomark to get rid of your trash? Man with a van a little to cheap and handy? Or did some member of your family not bother with the niceties of the tip?

Whoever it was, they’re scum. I hope their balls drop off.

March 30th – As I came back up over Aldershawe that afternoon I was exhausted. The week had been emotionally, physically and mentally enervating, and I felt flat, tired and weak. There had been a chord-change in the weather, too; it was chillier, a little overcast and there was a real bastard of a headwind. It probably wasn’t that fierce, but on top of everything, it just felt like another battle I didn’t need. At Cranebrook Lane, not far from Muckley Corner, I stopped for a snack and a drink, and remembered this sad little stub of a road. Before the great folly of the M6 toll, this used to be Bullmoor Lane; to save building another bridge, the road engineers instead diverted the sleepy back lane southwest, to meet Cranebrook Lane on the south side of it’s own flyover. I loved the bit of Bullmoor lane that was lost; it was a little hilly, had a good view to Shenstone, and I spent hours exploring here as a lad. When they cut it off, a piece of me, just a tiny bit, died. The lost lane is now just a gated farm track. 35 years ago, you may well have found an exhausted lad here. He’d dig for sweets or an apple in his saddlebag on his well-loved Peugeot bike, before heading off into the wind like I was about to. It seems as distant now as my first day at school. The watering eye must have been the wind.

March 30th – When I have to work in Leicester, I always get off the train if I can at South Wigston. The place I visit is actually closer to Leicester, but the journey from the centre isn’t very nice, to be honest.From South Wigston, on the other hand, it’s a delight. The station – whose desolation I loathe – is tucked away in the backstreets. Hitting the High Street of this suburb, about 200 yards away, it’s a busy, active and buzzing little town. There are some interesting shops, and it hums with activity. I visited a pub here once, a good few years ago now, after my train had been cancelled. It turned out the guy running it was from Brownhills. Odd, really, as at the time The Royal Exchange in Walsall Wood was being run by a couple from South Wigston…

March 29th – I haven’t a clue what’s going on with the old Muckley Corner Hotel anymore. It’s supposed to be under conversion back into dwellings (at least the rear part), yet the saga of painting, woodwork, then ripping the roof and freshly painted render off has been as bizarre as it has been perplexing. I wondered if the old pub part on the corner had a future as a pub or restaurant once more, but the way things are going, I think the building may fall down first. An odd state of affairs.

March 29th – It was another gorgeous morning, but the mist pictures were getting a but trite. I didn’t get the camera out much at all today, sometimes you just don’t. Coming home from Lichfield Trent Valley that evening, something about Greenhill in the city caught my eye. Maybe it was the low sun, the same lazy, yellow sunlight I’d noticed in the morning. But this part ofLichfield – as old as any, really, and once site of the east gate – was painted magical for a short while. It captivated me.

March 28th – The return journey was also really enjoyable – the Trent Valley Road was quite congested, and I enjoyed zipping uphill past the stationary cars. I chose to return over Aldershawe, and down into Wall. Taking the track beside the church, I popped into the churchyard to enjoy one of my favourite spots – sitting on the terrace wall between the upper and lower churchyard, contemplating the view of the Roman remains. Well worth a look around if you get chance, and it’s a lovely spot on a nice day such as this.

March 28th – Misty mornings are the order of the week, and I’m so glad that I’m cycling to Lichfield throughout this distinctly summery spell. The days are warm, still and glorious, the evenings deceptively chilly. But the mornings? I see the countryside just after sunrise. Shrouded in lazy mist, golden light and curious patches of grey. I wouldn’t have missed the last few morning commutes for anything. Today, I had time to spare and dropped off Pipe Hill down the back lanes, down over the old level crossing to Deans Slade. Captivating. 

March 27th – Lane’s Farm at Sandhills is known by most folk in Brownhills. Actually an arrangement of several houses, Home Farm, Sandhills House and Lime Barn stand on the bend of an old private track that connects the Anchor Bridge and pub with the foot of Shire Oak Hill opposite the old Leopard pub. It’s very sad that this track is a private road, and indeed, no public rights of way that I’m aware of cross this land, an unusual thing. The track neatly skirts Shire Oak Hill, and the ability to traverse it would be a boon on the way home sometimes. From the Sandhills side, the track is a majestic avenue of mature trees, leading to a house with a Victorian, walled kitchen garden. There is a lot of history here.