Tag: embankment

June 12th – Fed up of the ring road in the heat, the fumes were driving me mad. I hopped on the canal at Bridgman Street in Walsall and instantly felt transported to another world. Green, lush and limpid, it was heavenly, and unlike around Brownhills, the grass cutter hasn’t been this way yet and the embankments are still verdant carpets of grass and wildflowers.

This is near Bentley Bridge, in the heart of the industrial Black Country, yet the waterlillies are heathy, the waters clear, and a common tern hunted the water with skilful menace. And above all, peace – just the sounds of morning industry living and breathing.

The Black Country ugly? Open your eyes.

May 13th – The purple lupins (always earlier than the pink ones) are coming out on the canal bank above the big house at Clayhanger. I’ve never been sure if these are truly wild, or long-time feral escapees from the long gone garden of Ernest Jones, who had tennis courts and delicate flowerbeds at the foot of the embankment here nearly a century before. 

They are beautiful, complex and fascinating, and yet anotherindicator of the seasons escapement clicking over another notch. Spring goes from whites and yellows to blues and then purples. Summer is pretty much upon us now.

February 24th – Headed home mid afternoon after an early start, I did what I usually do at such times and came though Aldridge to avoid the mania of the school run traffic. Zipping along the canal, just by the overflow in Aldridge, a tiny clump of four beautiful purple crocuses. They were the only ones I could see, and stood quite alone. I wondered how these harbingers of spring came to be here; but it doesn’t matter how, just that they were. And I saw them, and their existance made me happy indeed.

February 22nd – Out early on an errand. I had to get some stuff from Screwfix, so I headed up to Walsall Wood on a fine, dry sunny spring morning. Taking to the canal, I noted that the embankment is now collapsing away near Clayhanger Bridge in addition to the area between Catshill Junction and the Pier Street Bridge. Clearly, the poor weather is taking a heavy toll, and the Canal and River Trust (which used to be British Waterways) have still yet to visibly attend to the previous problem I drew to their attention. 

In the meantime, watch out if you’re cycling or walking here – the holes that open up are narrow and deep. Take care.

February 3rd – I was out unexpectedly early, so I left work while it was still light. The sharp wind was drying out the towpaths, so I hopped onto the canal at Aldridge to get a break from the traffic of the school run. 

Passing the drain sluice near the Big House at Clayhanger, I noticed something I hadn’t previously. I always thought that if the sluice were opened, it would drain the canal onto the gardens below, as early pictures show this sluice feeding an open channel.

Now the leaves are off the trees, I see there’s actually a drain shaft on the embankment through the trees a few yards away that it must flow into; one assumes this is connected to the common drain for the area.

I’d always wondered why that sluice wasn’t better locked than it is.

January 26th – Beware, canal towpath walkers and cyclists. As pointed out by Warren Parry on Facebook a week or so ago, the brickwork on the embankment edge of the Wyrley and Essington Canal between Catshill Junction and the Silver Street Bridge in Brownhills is falling away.

A considerable cavity is opening between the towpath and the edging brickwork, large and deep enough to take a bike wheel or foot. I guess it’s caused by a combination of the weather and general erosion.

I shall contact the Canal & River Trust tomorrow to report the problem. In the meantime, watch where you’re going!

August 28th – For some reason today, my photos were all really rubbish and these are the best of a rum lot, so my apologies. These yellow flowers are dotting the hedges and canal banks at the moment. Colloquially called ‘butter and egg’ they are common toadflax, often mistaken for snapdragons (which I did, last year). They’re a lovely, dainty little flower and make a change from the predominantly dark tones of most of the flowers around at this time of year.

May 10th – A late afternoon run out on a very dull, miserable day. Brightened considerably by the performance of the wee rabbits up on the canal bank by the Lichfield Road.

Again, a little chap, but not the same one. He froze when he saw me coming. Sadly, he seems to have a sore on his back, but he looks fit and healthy otherwise. And he has a fine set of whiskers for a little ‘un.

This one is for that there  Linda Mason.

April 25th – Scooting home along the canal, I stopped to look at a well-worn, narrow path running down from Clayhanger Bridge, down on to the driveway of the big house. I think it’s a deer run.

A few times I’ve seen deer on Clayhanger Common around the overflow, whereupon they’ve escaped either under the bridge, or over the road and run down the embankment here. Looking at the marshy land behind the house and new pool, the vegetation there looks closely cropped. I think some of the deer are loafing there, safe from humans.