#365daysofbiking Either end:
November 19th – Working late in Redditch, I found myself waiting for the train homewards in a brightly lit, but sparse station, surrounded by the light of the Kingfisher Shopping Centre and bus station. It really is a most odd place at night. It barely feels like a station at all.
At the other end, leaving Blake Street and slogging up the Chester Road in unexpected rain was very hard, grim work.
I was just glad to get home tonight.
August 24th – At Chester Road near the Stonnall turning, just before Castlehill, change is afoot. The old quarry with the hardstanding, idle since the 50s after it’s use as a concrete block manufacturing works is now undergoing groundworks for the construction of a new care home.
There have been a number of planning applications for this site over recent times, and permission for a fairly large elderly person’s care facility was granted last year and will involve extensive modifications to the road to mitigate the driveway.
It’ll be interesting to watch this progress.
August 3rd – A tiring, heavy day at work followed by a call in south Birmingham saw me labouring up the Chester Road from Four Oaks station, headed for Burntwood for a family thing.
The sun had gone in for a bit, but the almost oppressive heat has returned. It’s as dry as old bones once more, but it’s different now; last time it was sunny, and baking – this is more of a dark, claustrophobic heat.
I still adore it though. Stood at the edge of a wheat field on the Chester Road under Castle Hill – one of the last few waiting for harvest locally – I looked up to the hamlet of Castle Gate, and over to Lazy Hill and the dramatic sky.
Only in the hottest, driest, sunniest summer for decades could my family have an outdoor get together and manage to get a dull, overcast day for it.
Such is life!
June 15th – I heard about the local poppy field on Facebook, and it being very sunny and early, I took a detour on the way to work to check it out.
The field is just on the east of the Chester Road before the Wood Lane junction and is glorious. A few snatched pictures don’t do this gem justice. I will revisit it soon.
I love to see the poppy fields at this time of year, and welcome their rise since the drop in farming use of herbicides that used to kill them.I also adore the randomnesss of the places they appear – never the same two years running.
A beautiful and ephemeral thing – get out and see it while it lasts.
June 1st – I’d been into Birmingham on the way home, and came back on the train to Blake Street with a headache riding shotgun. Although it was a pleasant, temperate afternoon, it wasn’t terribly bright, but as I passed Grove Hill near Stonnall, the sky lightened.
That tree, that hill, are local icons and subject of much legend. But for all that, they’re beautiful, especially in the summer, and make me feel I’m nearly home when I see them.
February 25th – I love daffodils – harbingers of spring, I eagerly await their appearance to herald the light and sun every year.
By now, I know where the earliest local ones appear – the miniature ones (possibly actually narcissus) in Kings Hill Park are usually competing to be first with this patch on the Chester Road near Stonnall, at the Wood Lane junction.
I know they’re both unnaturally early. But a man can dream of spring, after all.
They are a delight to welcome back every year, and on this dull, wet and blustery ride up the Chester Road, they gladdened my heart.
February 9th – The end of a long day. This week hasn’t been easy and I’ll be glad when Friday ends. The first couple of months of the year are always hard but January was particularly cruel. I’m welcoming the gradual return to light, and the generally brighter, colder weather is much better than the murky damp of last week.
Bu my goodness, work had been demanding of late.
Rolling downhill from Shire Oak to Brownhills with no energy left in the tank, I was exhausted, tired and hungry. I think I need a holiday. Already.
January 18th – A long, grey and damp day ended very, very late. Having been at work until late in the evening, I only remembered to stop for a photo as I came back into Brownhills over Anchor Bridge, so I snapped one of my favourite local night scenes.
Despite being very, very tired, the riding was good and fast this evening, and surprisingly dry too. Although this winter hasn’t been wet, the last week or so has been sodden, and I could really do with some bright dry days right now.
So weary of the grey.
December 20th – I keep passing this sign at the garden centre on the Chester Road near Mill Green, and as I passed it tonight, I realised that as with every year, it’s purpose had now all but ceased; few people will be buying the traditional nordman fir now, and so inexorably, the season is ticking away; One more day at work, then holiday, then on my return, a new year and nights that open out again after the winter solstice and shortest day, which occur the very next day.
Time marches on quickly for me these days, but this autumn, with the huge workload and long hours, has seemed particularly cruel.
I long for spring flowers, warm breezes and the sun on my face.
Soon be over the peak.
January 1st – This is… extraordinary. I came upon it out of pure, unbridled nosiness.
As you travel down the Chester Road from Shire Oak towards Stonnall, just within the boundary of Fishpond Wood and the old quarry, there’s a gated track.
As a kid, I was told there were cottages down there. Having seen a building on Google Earth, and occasionally seeing people pull out of the driveway, I paid it no mind.
But in recent weeks, there has been a pile of flytipped refuse in the track gateway, containing structural asbestos. I was wondering how the people here were accessing their house and if it was still lived in – I could vaguely remember seeing bins out for collection here, but not for a good while.
Passing the drive, I took a dive down there on my bike. It’s long, downhill, maybe ⅓ mile. With a large, derelict house at the end. A house once worth over half a million pounds.
It has clearly only been vacated in recent years, and is a rambling, oddly extended place with a wish-mash of extensions and levels, with one of the most bizarre fireplace arrangements i’ve ever seen. in it’s day it was clearly some place, but not now. Now, just vandalism, decay and eerie loneliness.
It turns out from subsequent research the place is owned by a developer, after the elderly couple who lived here vacated the place. Permission has been granted since 2013 to replace it with a large, new family home.
You can read about this, and some of the backstory in this Design & Access statement from the Lichfield Planning Department here.
Right now, it’s clearly a vandal magnet, and a target for flytippers.
A very curious thing indeed.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 