Tag: 365daysofbiking

#365daysofbiking Lighting the parish

Tuesday December 8th 2020 – I’m not certain it’s still the case, but fairly sure that the local councillors in Walsall Wood still fund the annual Christmas Tree outside the Parish Church of St John themselves; It’s an act of community spirit and largesse that I’ve always respected and appreciated, despite being miles away from the councillors politically.

The tree is the standard walsall borough tree and lights, but always looks that bit more festive in the grounds of the church.

A pleasure to see. My thanks to those involved.

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#365daysofbiking Tree cheers


Monday December 7th 2020 – Thanks to the tenacity and dedication of Susan Forster and friends who work so hard to raise money and organise the provision, Brownhills finally had it’s second festive community Christmas tree lit up on the miner island for all to enjoy.

Some electrical issues and council staffing difficulties meant it was a few days late, but no less excellent and very, very festive for us all to admire.

The tree is paid for like every other local tree in Walsall Borough by community donation and commercial support, and the volunteers have worked like demons to sort this out. The first tree they organised was in 2019, and that was the first we’d had in Brownhills for over a decade.

My thanks and best wishes to the all. You can find out more and make a donation at their Facebook page by clicking here.

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#365daysofbiking I want to see the bright lights tonight

Sunday December 6th 2020 – I had something to do in Walsall, and went on a damp, grey afternoon with trepidation. With the Pandemic it’s become an oddly desolate place in retail terms: An already suffering town centre has become more desperate.

However, I took the new camera and a good friend, and we explored familiar places with not many people in them as night fell – and it was refreshing and beautiful. Particularly Church Hill and the Arboretum.

The Panasonic loves the dark, and is much more responsive to low light in a way I’ve never known previous Panasonic cameras to be. This is a revelation.

I loved the bold colours and the way it picked them up in night scenes.

Going to have some fun with this one! It turned out Walsall was far more beautiful than ever I might have expected.

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#365daysofbiking Something different, something the same

Saturday December 5th 2020 – A new camera to play with, I’ve kindly been lent: A Panasonic LX100M2.

Lots of controls and new things to learn how to use, and the picture quality is clearly remarkable. So what do you do first with a new camera? Try some familiar views – and thankfully, at Chasewater, there was a nice sunset.

That’ll do.

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#365daysofbiking A case of tinselitis

Friday December 4th 2020 – Heading home along the High Street, something in the dark looked different about John McKenna’s Brownhills sign.

Some kind hearted soul had decorated it for Christmas.

With things in the town a little grim for the season, with the pubs shut and the pandemic ongoing, this guerrilla act of festive cheer was welcome and beautiful.

My thanks to the beautiful soul that did this. Merry Christmas!

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#365daysofbiking Looking the other way

Thursday December 3rd 2020 – On an evening ride on a night as the sky was clearing, I headed along the canal to Ogley Junction, and stopped as I usually do on the bridge there, for a moment of contemplation. Normally, I take a shot of the canal back towards Anchor Bridge, but today I turned to the right instead.

Here, the canal continues in a lazy arc to Anglesey Wharf and Chasewater, but before that is passes a notorious area of Brownhills called ‘The Chemical’.

The blue factory unit over there is stood on the site of a Victorian chemical factory and later, an alloy smelting works that poisoned the land, polluted the air and led to it’s descriptive nickname.

The Chemical stood as wasteland for many years until six years ago when the new unit was built as an extension to a local factory. The contaminated soil was encapsulated beneath the new building’s floor, and held safe.

Given a few years, I doubt many folk will ever know why we call this place The Chemical.

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#365daysofbiking Spot check


Wednesday December 2nd 2020 – Nipping to Clayhanger on an evening errand, I took the ‘new’ Spot path – the footpath that goes between Bridge Street, over the Common (’Spot’) by the settling pools and comes out by Pier Street pedestrian bridge.

It’s the ‘new’ path as it was created in the early 1980s while Clayhanger Common was being reclaimed from an old refuse tip, and served as a diversion for a shorter, more direct path called ‘Spot Lane’.

Spot Lane was reinstated as a footway when the common was complete, but the new path remained, and I’ve always preferred it. It’s especially atmospheric at night.

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#365daysofbiking Halfway up the junction

Tuesday December 1st 2020 – As you come up Green Lane from Shelfield at night, through the darkness of Green Lane, you come to a small hamlet at the foot of the Black Cock Bridge, the bridge itself being named after the pub on its southern flank.

The hamlet is one of the oldest parts of Walsall Wood, once known as Bullings Heath, but now just part of the greater township. Bullings Heath itself stretches on up Hall Lane, and ends at the junction with the Lichfield Road in an area of factories and industrial units that were once the site of a sprawling slum formed largely of canal workers and ex-navvies.

The junction between Hall Lane and Green Lane sits somewhat oddly halfway up the slope of the bridge, now accentuated due to mining subsidence, but always pronounced.

Looking down it at night gives a wonderful village feeling, and you could be in almost any rural community.

I often thought about the dairy farm in Hall Lane, whose buildings and great barn are still extant – and how the carter must have cursed at having to drive his horse uphill to go back down immediately when going to Shelfield with his milk.

I often wonder how much milk got spilled there…

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#365daysofbiking Down amongst the derelict

Monday November 30th 2020 – The weather remained bad, and heading home late up Brownhills High Street, I stopped to check a text, and then looked to my left.

Ravens Court was never a success. Opened in 1964, this dystopian, anonymous shopping precinct was mostly empty until 1970. It enjoyed a period of being mostly fully let for about 15 years, then it began to go to seed. A failed development by Tesco and its acquisition by property speculators sealed the fate of this dingy, concrete shopping parade. It’s owners never re-let the vacated shops and for the best part of a decade it’s been deserted and decaying, right in the heart of Brownhills.

It’s shape as a plot is bad. It’s on a pronounced gradient. There’s a lot of demolition to do. The site is unattractive, and this is not a time for retail investment.

In private ownership, the council are powerless to duo anything, much, and to the town’s frustration, we are left with this rotting monument to opportunist modernism.

Hopefully something will change here, soon. But I’m not optimistic.

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#365daysofbiking Atmospheric pressure

Sunday November 29th 2020 – The weather was still awful, but resolved to make a better time of it, I set out with a good friend to try and capture the mist and light as best we could.

Sometimes, on the greyest, most horrible nights magic happens, and tonight, it did just that.

Mist and electric light can make the most industrial places look stunning – those swans are on a thin ribbon of canal between a waste transfer station and a scrapyard.

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