Tag: cottage

May 28th – A recovery day. I didn’t do much, but had to be at a function in Burntwood in the afternoon, so I pottered there in the sunshine of a breezy afternoon along the canal and via Chasewater. I’ll never tire of the stretch between Anchor Bridge and Chasewater; so varied in such a short run; urban gardens, rolling countryside. Green fields, open heath and factory yards. It’s all here, and all rather splendid.

My Horse Chestnut tree at Home Farm – my favourite, and my overseer of the year – is currently in glorious flower, like most conker trees. At the Chasewater Cottages, young rabbits regarded me watchfully from the buttercup-strewn lawn. And in a waterside garden, I loved momma and children scarecrows.

I’ll never love a stretch of canal more than this.

April 26th – It’s nice to see Scarborough Road in the Walsall suburb of Pleck currently being resurfaced – the road is an occasional bypass for the Pleck Road for me, and may now be mores with rideable tarmac. My thanks to the workers involved – we’ve not got an upper layer of blacktop yet, but it’s already a whole world better.

Whilst stopped to record the art of asphalt, I noticed the handwritten warning on the stubbornly derelict School Street Cottage. I’ve noticed a few times left here empty steel cooking oil drums, presumably someone is running their vehicle on either virgin or waste cooking oil and dumping the evidence. 

Nice bit of direct action there.

April 10th – Nice to see a thriving bunny population around the dam and Anglesey Wharf and basin at Chasewater.

There were a large group cropping the turf at the back of the dam cottage, sadly they were skittish and I scared all but this pair away.

They look healthy though. Good to see them after the myxomatosis outbreak near Newtown ended the warren there.

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.

December 22nd – At least now, we’ve had the Solstice and the shortest day – it’s all coasting to spring now, whatever the weather, we still wander gently but surely into the light. My darkness is retreating.

Holding back the darkness in its own way is this Christmassy cottage near Springhill, between Lynn and Sandhills. I had to nip to Stonnall on my way home again, and the rain had made for yet another commuting battle. But seeing the white lights twinkling, and the thoughtful execution made me smile.

A light in the darkness. Merry Christmas!

August 26th – Even on a grim, grey day, Wall still has a fascination. Riding in via the track that constitutes Back Lane was a challenge, as it’s very overgrown, but such a delight. The fields here have been fully harvested, and look barren dressed in their underwear of stubble.

The village itself is fascinating. The half-cream, half-barebrik place with the odd gables? That was once a pub called the Seven Stars, and is now a lovely looking home.

Once, it stood on the main A5 between Brownhills and Tamworth, but the road was diverted on to a new dual carriageway half a mile to the south, and peace is restored.

A lovely little village.

May14th – I was back in Telford, and shut in an airless building with no natural light, so I missed a sunny, gorgeous day. This made it nicer to be out when I left though, and cycling home from Four Oaks in the evening sun I was struck by how green and verdant everything now is.

At Mill Green, the cottage looks lovely cloaked in it’s summertime shroud of greenery, and I noted the elders were flowering beautifully up the lane. 

A wonderful evening ride.

October 20th – Also up on Chasewater Dam, I spotted the crack in the render of the back wall of the dam cottage. It’s obviously been there a while, and someone is monitoring it – that white plate, glued across the fracture with resin, was put there to gauge if the crack was growing. The plate has indeed fractured, and a portion is now missing.

I guess it’s a remnant of the dam works here. I never noticed it before.