Tag: Aldridge

May 3rd – An old cycling friend of mine whom I used to meet occasionally in the lanes of Staffordshire – the late, lamented Maurice Purser, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 93 and still rode when he was 90 – would have referred to today as a ‘wolf of a day’, in that it looked nice and friendly, but was vicious with teeth and claws. The sun was out, it was clear as a bell. It was even a tad warmer – but there was the kind of punishing, relentless wind you get in May that makes cycling in the wrong direction a joyless, unpleasant chore.

I kept close to home, and visited some places I knew would benefit from clear air and sunlight; Lazy Hill, Thornes Hill and the the church at Stonnall, and Grove Hill. I drank in the views, enjoyed the oilseed rape and noted that from Lazy Hill the wind turbine near Whittington was clearly visible. The aspect from the rear of the churchyard – just beyond the fence – was as wonderful as ever, a veritable walk across Stonnall’s rooftops. Up on Grove Hill I was buffeted by the wind and took several attempts at the panorama.

This is our area at it’s best, and worst: a grand day that presented the scenery beautifully, but was just too hostile to cycle out to see it.

February 27th – I had to pop into Aldridge on my way home and had ridden up Coppice Lane; not far from the gas turbine and leechate plant, another sign of a dirty underground secret from the past. This square compound on wind and mud-blasted wasteland, just off the rear entrance to the Ibstock Brick plant, is a breather for the mines underneath the area that were used as a dumping receptacle for millions of gallons of industrial toxic waste a couple of decades ago.

Inside this well-locked square palisade fence, a bulkhead is fitted to a borehole that goes hundreds of feet underground and allows gasses to vent to the atmosphere from the sludge within. The breather itself is from a tall pipe, well above human head height, up where the wind can quickly disperse anything nasty.

It’s sobering, and a bit chilling; and indicator that beneath this area there is an unknown quantity still requiring monitoring and care. But the ground it is in is surrounded in clay and favourable, and as time passes, the content should settle.

There are several of these installations in the local area – finding them is an interesting, if slightly unnerving challenge.

February 27th – A lot of the history of Brownhills, Walsall Wood and Aldridge is about what lies beneath. Coal, clay, industrial effluent and landfill have shaped particularly the borderlands between Walsall Wood and Aldridge. Where brick marls were abundant, soon voids in the ground where they had been extracted were too. Into these holes, we tipped refuse in huge quantities, as the remaining clay made a good seal against the contaminant waste.

In the early days, the landfill and waste disposal industry was unregulated, haphazard, and somewhat akin to the Wild West. Waste was put anywhere, and unmonitored. These days, it’s a tightly monitored industry that has to look after its dirty secrets. 

At the Vigo Utopia landfill site just off Coppice Lane, gas turbine engines run 24 hours a day, driving electricity generators from the gasses harvested from the decomposing rubbish. This produces significant amounts of power from 2 generator sets in converted shipping containers, employing gas that would once have been merely vented to the atmosphere. 

Nearby, a series of bunds and pools lined with thick rubber gather water and liquid pumped from deep within the mound. This poisonous soup is called ‘leechate’, and is allowed to settle out before being disposed of as hazardous effluent. Again, years ago, such concerns were not addressed and sites were allowed to pollute groundwater uncontrolled.

This is ugly, scarred landscape; but we are looking after it much better than we used to.

January 23rd – on a grey, murky afternoon I cycled down the canal from Aldridge. I’d headed for the canal as I often do to escape the traffic, which seemed overly aggressive as I’d hit it during the school run.

Passing the Weinerburger Brick marl pit at Stubbers Green, I took a look into the void through the fence. It doesn’t get deeper, but it grows steadily, by gradual removal, dumper after dumper of red marl heading to the moulds and then the kilns.

That’s a lot of bricks come out of there. And what a huge scar on the landscape. But the one ever-present thing here – the familiar, warm smell of bricks being fired – is, like Burntwood’s permanent smell of vinegar – one of the ways I know I’m near home.

January 11th – The former Focus DIY store continues to fall prey to flytipping, antisocial behaviour and vandalism. Empty for a number of years now since the chain of shops went bust, there was an application back in the summer to turn this into a B&M discount store, which seems like a good idea to me. On the planning system at Walsall Council, the application is still listed and ‘no decision’ – wonder what the holdup is?

January 5th – In the New Year Quiz on my main blog this year, I asked about the bulkhead pipes visible sticking from the mounds of a couple of local landfill sites; the answer was that they were gas collection points, to feed a gas turbine that generated electricity from the otherwise wasted methane evolved when the buried refuse decomposes.

This plant – humming away continuously in the way only a gas turbine can – is just off Brickyard road in Aldridge and has been running for at least 3 years fuelled by as from the Vigo Utopia landfill, generating electricity which is fed back into the national grid.

Refuse operators will paint this as ‘green energy’ – it’s no such thing; it’s not renewable, is finite and is no cleaner than any other methane power plant. It is, however, making use of gas that formerly would have been wasted, so it’s a good thing.

There is a similar setup at Highfields South, not more than a mile away.

December 16th – This huge house in Mill Green has been empty for years, and had piqued my interest ever since I first noticed it on the corner of Mill and Forge Lanes. It’s huge, and must, when in good condition, have been worth a lot of money.

I’ve always wondered how such a property – in quite an exclusive area – comes to be derelict. There’s a story there, but I’m not even sure I want to know it, and attempts to find out have never been successful.

The gardens and hedges – long since overgrown – have now been cleared,  I noticed as I cycled past. There has been outstanding planning permission to demolish the place and build another house for a while. I suppose work will soon start.

A mystery. 

November 22nd – Despite occasional heavy showers, it was a lovely day. Not cold at all, and blessed with a gorgeous golden hour with a clear sky. I headed back to Brownhills via the canal, and the wonderful light set everything aflame.

There are loads of what I think might be imperial caps growing where the embankment has been recently mown at Clayhanger. Damned opportunist fungi…

 A fine time to be out, despite an unpromising, damp start. Those autumn colours were wonderful.

November 22nd –  I had to nip to Aldridge in the afternoon, and on autopilot, rode up the canal, to find it still blocked off for works between Northywood Bridge at the back of Brickyard Road and the Wharf Bridge in Aldridge, between Stubbers Green and the town centre.

I had, of course, had warning of this previously from TheMadOldBaggage and Stymaster, and forgot; still, the diversion wasn’t too bad.

The closure looks set to continue for a while as they rebuild embankments. Look out for it if you’re up that way. If you remember…

November 19th – Heading out at dawn for a meeting in Telford, before returning at lunchtime. On the way, they sun caught the clouds over Mill Green, and made the sky precious.

A beautiful sunrise, and I was honoured to see it.

In the words of Joni Mitchell ‘it’s coming on winter now’ – the commutes are progressively getting colder and I think before long the frost will be here.

I have no idea why, but this year i’m actually enjoying it.