Tag: house

#365daysofbiking A lifetime away

March 17th – On Lea Lane, between Newton and Admaston, a nice country house. Rambling, large, with half its garden oddly over the road, it’s a curious building.

What casual passers-by don’t realise in many cases is that this house, up until very, very recently, was actually a pub called The Wicket. In the middle of nowhere, I guess the pub had a hard time surviving, and closed like so many others. And now, you’d never know.

I went in there once. It was nice enough, but quiet as you’d expect. It seems odd now that I sat with a Guinness in what is now a total stranger’s lounge.

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March 7th – Returning via Shenstone, in the new-found evening commute dusk, I noticed that the tiny, log abandoned bungalow at Owletts Farm on Lynn Lane is now visible, before another summer’s leaf growth conceals it once more.

I don’t know why this tiny house, like several in the area is being allowed to decay, as I’m sure that before the rot set in it would have been a nice home for someone.

It has been empty as long as I’ve been cycling these lanes – nearly 40 years now.

A sad little tragedy.

March 3rd – One thing it has been nice to see of late is the new house at Highfield, south of Chasewater. Once an active farm, the site fell into decline and most of the original farm was demolished. Permission was applied for a replacement house several years ago and has now been build, and it’s a handsome, four-square place. I wish the new residents well.

In the field nest door, the coos remain as nosy and inscrutable as cows always are. I’m not sure if they’re connected with the house, or just there to manage the heath nearby, but they are lovely. They don’t seem to mind the cold.

July 6th – This is terrific. Coming from Walsall down the Wednesbury Road and through Places, I happened to notice the tenement house over the road, with the absolute riot of flowers in borders, tubs and baskets.

All this in a part of Walsall often considered to be less than beautiful.

My compliments and thanks to the householder, a beautiful and wonderful thing – all crammed in to a very small space.  

This really brightened my morning.

July 1st – This is just wonderful. I spotted it a couple of weeks ago but I couldn’t stop to photograph it. Outside a recently well-renovated house on the A461, a new house sign lovingly and beautifully made in the image of the house.

Just look at the detail in that, the tiles on the roof. Its wonderful.

My compliments to the householder, and huge respect for the craft and skill of whoever created this wonderful curiosity.

November 24th – Returning late gave me an opportunity to feature something here I mean to every year, but rarely get chance to – the remarkable Christmas lights at the house near Rushall Square. 

I usually pass in times of heavy traffic, or frustratingly when they’re not switched fully on but this fiesta of LED light takes place broadly from the end of October until New Year every winter.

It’s not, I have to say, to my taste, but there’s clearly a huge amount of work, time, and no little use of electricity there, so hats off to it and my compliments to the householder.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

October 17th – I’ve passed through Ocker Hill and Toll End a fair bit lately, and I’ve noticed this house at the top of Toll End Road near the island.

It’s old. I think it’s older than anything in the immediate vicinity, and of what looks like a very un-black country design; the only thing I can liken it to around these parts is the old White Lion in Caldmore Green, Walsall.

Does anyone know the history of this curious house please?

July 30th – Passing through leafy, upmarket Mill Green on the way to work, I noted that the large abandoned house on the corner of Forge Lane looks to have reached the end of the line. Abandoned for years, I never found out how a very large, modern family home on the outskirts of Little Aston comes to fall derelict, and I now doubt I ever will, but the property was for sale for ages and was finally procured by developers a year ago.

Since then the surrounding scrub has been cleared, and a small bungalow built in the back garden. In the last couple of days, a large excavator has appeared which I suspect may demolish the house.

It’s nice to see something being developed on such an abandoned site, but one does wonder what happened.

A mystery.

June 26th – Back near Lower Stonnal, a noxious assault of a different kind…

I was riding back down the lanes and I realised there was a strong farmyard smell, which is unusual there. I travelled some way further and discovered I had been downwind of this: it’s a crop sprinkler spraying liquid slurry on the grass to improve it (I assume the pump is elsewhere).

This is a dairy farm, and they’re using one of the cattle’s most copious products to restore the growth to the pasture.

Nicely circular, but very smelly.