Tag: Black Path

March 31st – Heavy rains continued into Saturday with a break in the afternoon, And I took a spin around Clayhanger Common to check out the flooding situation.

As usual in heavy rain, the canal overflow had swamped, and the lower meadow was flooding over the new spot path. I often wonder who comes out and resets the breakers on the street lights after the water level drops.

This area is designed as a flood buffer to hold water away from CLayhanger Village and resolve it’s historical flooding problem – and it does a great job.

January 2nd – Still feeling my way. In a late evening bible after the rain cleared I pottered up the Black Path and along through Newtown to see how the camera reacted to the low light in the first instance and the streetlights in the other.

The shots seem a bit dark. I’m wondering if I’ve broken an exposure setting since Monday, which is a huge possibility.

They aren’t bad pictures, though for handheld on a dark night.

Puzzling.

December 26th – The Boxing Day weather was altogether better, but still somewhat grey and overcast with that keen wind. Again, bad weather was forecast for the evening, with heavy rain and even snow predicted. 

I slipped out at lunchtime into a grey landscape, and was encouraged to find these bright honey fungus clumps growing on an tree stump on the Black Path.

Some days, the mere sight of something natural and bright is enough to improve your day.

March 2nd – Whilst in the public notices department, it had been drawn to my attention that the Black Path – the popular right of way from the bottom of The Parade to Watling Street by Brownhills School – had been temporarily closed by council order following the flooding I documented recently. Today, I noted that the water on the tennis courts and at the foot of the incline at the top of the path had receded. Both problems will now, without doubt, be forgotten by the council until the next period of heavy rains. 

Oak Park’s bowling green is still doubling as a lido.

Is it too much to ask that these problems be fixed once and for all before the next wet winter? Closing the Black Path may not seem much, but if you have to walk it’s a very long way arouund…

February 17th – There’s water everywhere at the moment, but it’s depressing to note that flooding caused by bad drains is still happening a couple of years after I first noticed it. At the Black Path, near the A5 by Brownhills School, pedestrians and cyclists are forced onto a muddy desire-path around a lake formed because the drain at the bottom of the slope hasn’t been cleaned out for years.

Similarly, and most frustratingly, at the other end of the Black Path, the money recently spent on Hoilland Park clearly didn’t extend to sorting the nonfunctional drains on the tennis court. Like the flooded bowling green at Waslall Wood, this has been ongoing for a couple of years now. A refurbishment has recently taken place here, yet it’s still flooded, and presenting a hazard.

I’d really like someone to look into sorting these problems out – a lot of people complain about them, and it’s getting harder and harder to defend the official position. 

If we can find money to resurface paths, I sure we can spend a little bit sorting the blocked drains.

August 9th – I was pleased to note that someone has taken it upon themselves to paint and restore the old milepost at the top of the Black Path on the Watling Street in Brownhills. The sign, which is quite old, has been broken the way it is for as long as I can remember, but it’s nice to see it white with the remaining test picked out in black. I have no idea why it was erected here, or who by; it’s not in the common local style. I’m also curious as to why it says ‘Rugeley’ at the base, a detail I’d never previously noticed.

It would be nice if it could be restored to it’s original condition. I wonder what the blank arm said?

December 31st – I returned to the top of the Black Path in Brownhills, where I’d accidentally found the flooding on the previous Saturday evening. This time I had a decent camera and could record the fact that, stood in the middle of the pool, was a lit and working street light. I suppose the connection point is above water level, but even still, it seems remarkable. The remainder of Holland Park still seemed rather waterlogged too.

I’m hoping now for a period of stable, dry weather to dry things out a bit. Wonder if I’ll be lucky?

December 29th – It all went a bit Pete Tong. I left home late – the weather had again been dismal – in the dark, and had somewhere to be, and very limited time. Bereft of inspiration, I headed up to the A5. The wind and drizzle were vile, truly vile, and then I realised I’d forgotten my camera. This left me with the task of attempting night photography, without a tripod I could use, on a phone camera. Great.

As it happened, it wasn’t too bad; I got reasonable results with the rail plant yard at Newtown, and some Christmas lights on a house near Deakin Avenue. Then home beckoned. I spotted the flood at the top of the Black Path too late. Wonderful.

Actually, huge parts of Holland Park were under water. Is this rain ever going to stop? I returned home, sodden and grim, cursing my forgetfulness.

November 10th – I didn’t get out until nightfall. It was cold, and clear, and I was all set. Then I discovered my camera had not charged from the night before. I carried on with my ride, then returned home, got a fresh cell, and nipped out to Brownhills. It was around 7pm, and the High Street was quiet. I looked in Ravens Court, the battered, all but derelict shopping precinct. A typical design of the period, it was further bastardised by a hideous facelift in the 1990s. It’s now down to a couple of tenants, and stands, unloved, steadily decaying. Tesco were to demolish this and build a new superstore, but they got cold feet and have left the community in limbo. this desolation is our gift from the retail behemoth that destroyed our town. At night it’s grim, desolate and forbidding.

In daytime, it’s worse.

Further towards home, I traversed the Black Path, the cycleway and footpath that heads up through Holland Park to the A5 and Newtown. That too was dark and hostile. I don’t know what it is about Brownhills at night these days, but the quality of darkness seems to be getting more malevolent. Perhaps it’s just the mood I’m in…

December 4th – Running from the A5 Watling Street, down through Holland Park, the Black Path is well known to Brownhillians. This lonely byway across the common and heath links Brownhills to it’s satellite area of Newtown, and the popular Brownhills School. At the north end of this path, there used to be a close of grim maisonettes at Deakin Avenue, whose only practical link to the town was this dark, and then unlit, path. Not a journey I’d like to take at night on foot. A lonely, forbidding place.