May 5th – first wild garlic nasal attack of the season. I love the scent of this woodland plant. Preferring wet, shady areas, this white-flowered relative of the more familiar cultivated variety grows in profusion on the banks of the River Arrow in Redditch. Stopping to investigate this delicious aroma, I came upon a veritable carpet of white blooms. A delightful assault on the senses.
May 5th – Garden waste collection day in Four Oaks, Sutton. This plush, opulent area of large, detached houses can be considered one of the wealthiest parts of Birmingham, yet this is the scene on refuse collection days.
Anyone who complains about Walsall’s waste collection system really needs to get out and look at that of Birmingham. This is a disgrace, pure and simple.
May 4th – Wordsley House, grade II listed building, sits on Main Street, Stonnall, as it has done since at least the late seventeenth century; one roof purlin was found to be inscribed ’S.I.E. 1677’. It has an interesting history as the former Welsh Harp Inn.
Julian Ward-Davies, in his excellent Stonnall Mysteries thesis, notes the following:
As we continue down Old Chester Road, we pass by Wordsley House on the left, which embodies our next mystery. This is now a private residence, but once it had a very different function. This house was once nationally famous as the now almost legendary Welsh Harp.
Now we may ask, how it was that an inn in the English Midlands took such a name. The explanation is, as I see it, the same as it is for the naming of the Irish Harp at Chester Road, Mill Green near Little Aston. As we have already noted, Chester Road was a major route between London and North Wales. Thus many of the people en route were not only Welsh, but there was also a very high proportion of travellers who were Irish people on their way to and from Holyhead, where there has always been a major connection to Ireland. Thus the Welsh Harp and the irish Harp provided, supposedly, a home-from-home ambience for the straightforward commercial purpose of attracting more customers.
May 4th – Morning commute to Sutton, and another great example of inconsiderate, dangerous and stupid driving; this time it’s on the A5127 Lichfield Road in Mere Green, just at the junctions of Harland Road and Holly Lane. This is a shamefully poor piece of road use for which there can be little excuse. Yet again I find myself cut up in a posh area. What gives?
May 3rd – Interested to note that in Redditch, the government isn’t universally loved. Coincidentally, there seems to be an increase in politically motivated graffiti in the last 6 months. Are we really returning to the eighties?
May 3rd – Morning commute to Sutton, 8:35am, as bad a piece of driving as I’ve seen in a week or so. She looked at me, made eye contact, then paused, before pulling out. Fortunately I had my wits about me and was alert enough to slam the brakes on. I was quite close to collision, there.
May 2nd – Following on from yesterday’s pillbox, I thought I’d visit a military relic of an altogether different stripe today. Shenstone ROC post is a small, self contained nuclear bunker, designed to hold three operators during a nuclear strike. Their duty would have been to take measurements of radioactivity, blast pressure, weather and air conditions after an attack, record them and report back to central control if possible. The people who trained for this quasi-military role were volunteers, usually ex-servicemen. In a nuclear attack, these men would retreat into this hole, and effectively wait to die of either radiation sickness or starvation.
The British countryside is peppered with these little-known facilities, now derelict after the disbanding of The Royal Observer Corps at the end of the cold war – there are posts locally at Harlaston, Rugeley and Queslett. This one is sealed with a concrete block after fears that it would be occupied by anti-motorway protestors during the construction of the M6 toll.
For more information, bang the term ‘Subterranea Britannica ROC’ into google. A fascinating, very british history.
May 2nd – another beautiful day made difficult by a rapacious wind. A ride out through Stonnall and Shenstone to Canwell, Hints and Hopwas was very hard going indeed. I found plenty of opportunities to stop, for when I did, it was the only time that the sun’s warmth could be felt. This unusual view of Stonnall was taken from the corner of Stonnall churchyard, an available vista I’d not spotted previously.
May 1st – a punishing ride into Lichfield to check out the Lichfield Festival Market. A ride that normally takes 15 minutes, with some excellent downhill bits – took twice as long. The exttra wobble perceptible in this footage is caused by the wind.
May 1st – This house, on the corner of Hollyhill Lane and Footherley Lane near Shenstone has always captivated me. I love the gables and chimneys, and the general air of rural seclusion it conveys. When I was a kid, one would often see a real fire in the hearth on winter days through the french windows at the front. It always looked so warm and cosy.
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