Tag: coal

#365daysofbiking How sweet thou art

June 28th – Riding out in the morning for a long ride with an old friend, we passed through Anglesey Wharf where coal from the Chasetown, Norton and Burntwood mines used to be loaded on narrowboats for transport south.

The wharf long ago fell silent, although the remains of the coal chutes and conveyors remain witness to a dark industrial past – but today, the spot is peaceful and teaming with wildlife.

Growing around a coal loading chute that used to be polished to a shine by the black gold are now the most delicate, beautifully scented wild sweetpeas, unthinkable in the wharf’s heyday.

It’s lovely to see and a great memorial to a lost industry, and a nod to a much cleaner future.

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#365daysofbiking Lamping it

February 24th – Piccadilly Mining Memorial, erected in 2009, is oddly similar in concept and design to the one created in 22006 in Hednesford. The lamp is made by CAM Engineering of Pyle, South Wales, who seem to have made several, including the one at Hednesford. The wall with names of miners inscribed in the bricks is also a feature at Hednesford.

The area around the tiny village of Piccadilly – now marooned by a huge oil terminal and large industrial parks – used to be occupied by several large coal mines, now closed, and mining heritage is strong here, so the desire for a memorial is under stable and totally appropriate.

I just seems a bit… Off the peg to me.

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October 8th – A better day when the sun periodically graced us with it’s gentle, warming optimism, and since it’s autumn, where better to go than Cannock Chase? It’s one thing I miss in summer; the Chase is far too crowded to ride much in summer, making every ride a trial of concentration and nerves, but at the cooler, damper end of the year it’s virtually deserted in the best parts and people rarely venture there.

I hauled myself up over Pye Green and to Brocton Field before descending into the Sherbrook Valley and over Milford and Shugborough and back along the canal to Rugeley and then home through the night-time lanes of Longdon.

A great ride tat cheered me up totally – and I’d forgotten the improvised birded feeding point up in the car park off Chase Road for Freda’s Grave – I watched birds happily feeding for 20 minutes, captivated by their antics. It was also wonderful to see a nuthatch, which is a first for me – it reminded me of a land-based kingfisher. The colours are gorgeous.

We need more decent weather days. I need more of this in my life right now.

February 1st – Just on the rough side of Brownhills Common, a handful of yards from Coppice Lane, there’s a deep void in the land through the trees It may be the remnant of early surface mining, or the later evidence of hamfisted mineral exploration (the coal here was evident on the surface, so it was said; the grey clay also highly prized by potters), but it’s been here for decades; the spoil is piled up around it in mounds with fairly mature trees growing from them, which must date from around 1977, as the year previously, the whole of this side of the common had been flatted by a grassfire.

Every landscape tells a story This one tells of an industrial, blighted past, which we now sort of revere.

Brownhills holds some of it’s oldest secrets closest, but in plain sight.

December 27th – I was out taking photos for the New Year Quiz on the main blog, and I found myself in Engine Lane (no, this isn’t a clue!) as the sun set. The green lane here is nothing but a mud bath, but it was beautiful, all the same. Considering the filth and fury that would once have existed here in the form of mining, it really is hard to imagine the peace of this quiet, almost rural spot ever being disturbed; likewise, the canal between Clayhanger and the Black Cock Bridge. Where I stood, trains once crossed to a huge colliery on the other side of the canal. The air would have been full of smoke, dust and noise; the canal full of narrowboats.

As the sun set on this very, very windy but quiet afternoon, it was hard to visualise the industry that made this community.

How time moves on.

November 11th – Returning via a rather dark and cold Rugeley bypass, at least I had the wind behind me. I stopped at the Bridge in Rugeley and checked out the view before me. I love Rugeley Power Station by night. This is one of the most advanced coal burning generation facilities in Europe, and the fume scrubbing plant, covered in lights, is futuristic and fascinating at night. Built as one of the postwar River Trent behemoths, most of it’s companion facilities have long since gone, like Drakelow and Willington. A stunning, and dare I say it, beautiful thing.