Tag: cottage

October 24th – The grim weather continues. Every commute is an effort this week – really poor visibility coupled with slippery, greasy roads and a fine, penetrative drizzle that soaks everything. I just want a clear, bright, cold day for a change. It’s also really, really difficult to take photos. The exposure on the camera slows down to sub-handheld speeds, and pictures are washed out and grey, just like the landscape. 

Passing the junction of Forge Lane and Walsall Road, this is the old village of Little Aston, before the money moved in. These cottages, behind the venerable scots pine, are very old indeed. Just up forge lane, the original smithy still stands, up until a couple of years ago, still a blacksmith’s sop. Even on a grey day, it’s an attractive place hinting at a more rural past.

August 24th – I’m not sure this cottage has a name. Standing on the junction of Footherley Lane, Gravelly Lane and Mill Lane in Lower Stonnall, it’s a handsome, four-square but fairly low Staffordshire cottage. I love everything about it; it’s standing at the junction, the ivy, the imposing doorway and oblique angle. I suspect it to be quite old, and the gardens are often full of beautiful flowers. This home is a lovely landmark on my way home, and even in the dark, it’s lights welcome me on my return from a long ride.

August 22nd – Just around the corner from Lynn Hall stands this attractive cottage. I’m not sure it has a name, but it is a typical, four-square late victorian Staffordshire cottage, made with the characteristic blue and very, very red local brick. I pass this home an awful lot, yet until recently, have never really studied it. I noticed particularly the chimney, with its original, ornate pots and interesting design. I love chimneys, they add real character to buildings, and I mourn the passing of their ornamentation. 

May 26th – A great ride today in blazing sunshine which I recorded in this post on my main blog. But while heading out, I noticed  that these old cottages in Footherley Lane, near Shenstone, had at last received some attention. All the surrounding scrub has been cut down. Hopefully, this is a precursor to someone actually turning them back into homes. Derelict for since I was a child, there’s no excuse for allowing good house to just crumble, unoccupied and unloved. The people who did so should hang their heads in shame.

April 11th – This makes me angry. Very angry indeed. This small bungalow – the lodge to Owletts Hall Farm, in Lynn, on the road between Shenstone and Stonnall, is another long-empty property being left to collapse by its selfish owners. This wrecked, derelict house – like Keepers Cottage and the abandoned terraces in Footherley – could make someone a lovely little home. But for some reason, the owner would rather see the building carried to dust. I’ve known this building to be empty for over thirty years. There ought to be a law against this. 

April 7th – Since the day was grey and overcast, I went with the flow. The weather gradually cleared, and I explored the completed dam works at Chasewater. One of the greater sadnesses of the place is the tumbledown cottage at the north end of the dam. Slowly falling into itself, I have no idea who owns it, or how it came to be in this condition. It’s neighbour – a near identical home – is in beautiful condition and very much still inhabited and looked after. I know the cottages to have been built to serve the mine, but other than that, I’m aware of little of their history.

March 17th – Unusually, I came home through Hammerwich. I don’t usually do that, but had to pop into Brownhills West on the way back. The weather was vey grim, and I only just missed getting soaked. Hammerwich, however, was as beautiful as ever, and the overcast weather made for moody, cinematic photos. On the corner of the bizarrely-named Lions Den and Station Road, I noticed Hall Cottage, which I’d not really studied previously. A beautiful little house.

March 9th –  A day off, and an afternoon pottering around Lichfield. I only noticed this one in recent months, it must be normally quite well hidden. Cresting Pipe Hill, over the old crossroads, but not quite at the new island, stands an empty, decaying house. I don’t know who owns it, or why it stands empty, but there’s a notice up pointing out that it’s not for sale or rent. Which, like the houses in Footherley, near Shenstone, is pretty sad. Houses should resonate to the sounds of life – there is nothing sadder than an empty house, particularly in a time when homelessness has increased 14% in one year. The owner should be ashamed.

July 19th – These two lady cyclists also bid me a pleasant greeting as they passed me whilst I was taking a photo of this handsome, ivy-draped cottage on the junction of Footherley Lane and Gravelly Lane, Lower Stonnall. I’ve always loved this house. I like the way it oversees the junction, and how beautiful it looks after dark, the light from it’s windows like a beacon on many a winters night. Quite what the cyclists thought I was up to, I have no idea.

May 18th – Derelict, abandoned and crumbling for as long as I’ve been cycling, Keeper’s Cottage on Footherley Lane refuses to actually fall down. I first explored the shell of this building in 1982, and it has remained, unloved, ever since. It’s not the only derelict home in the area – there’s a boarded up bungalow on Lynn Lane and a row of similar terraced cottages in Footherley itself. All have been 3 decades empty. This is criminal. One assumes the same owner is responsible for all three.