December 4th – Similarly, when I passed the canal junction at Walsall further on my way to work, I hopped off the ring road and on to the pavement to take this one from the Smiths Flourmill Bridge.
It’s early in the morning, the sun is low, and the two constants of Walsall – the waterway and that huge Victorian chimney stand as markers to the place I love.
A great morning ride.
December 3rd – So enjoying the tailwind, I let it blow me to Walsall Wood, where I noted they have an excellent Christmas tree again this year, which I think is funded by local Tory councillors.
I’m by no means a Conservative, but respect to them for this act of generosity.
When I see the tree at Walsall Wood, I know Christmas is just around the corner. It’s one of the milestones of the season for me. A lovely thing indeed.
December 2nd – I came through Walsall early evening, having resolved to pay more attention to the place after yesterday taking pictures in the Civic Quarter. Tonight, I noted how nice the Christmas lights were this year, and how for once, we had a decent Christmas tree.
Although we seem to be hurtling towards Christmas at a rate of knots at the moment, I haven’t felt very festive so far – until tonight.
Of course, Christmas means the winter solstice and the end of the darkening days, and the start of another season’s promise.
I’ll have some of that.
December 1st – Coming through Walsall early evening was oddly festive. Although I loathe the striped paving and out of place lighting columns, I love the ‘Civic Quarter’ at night.
Such a combination of architecture, surface, artificial light and mature urbanness. A very photogenic, under appreciated corner of Walsall.
November 30th – Telford, early in the rain. Not quite fully light. The skeletal, brutalist 80s footbridge and covered walkway at the station is like some strange portal. Ghosts of people, further away than you think; exaggerated perspective and peculiarly yellow lighting.
An otherworldly, slightly unsettling place.
November 28th – Saturday was a much better day. i had an errand to run in Lichfield in the morning, before the weather broke once more, and I took a wander down Quonians Lane, a place I’d passed but never studied before much.
What a beautiful, idiosyncratic building.
November 27th – Passing through New Street mid day, I was again struck by the contrast between the media hype of a reborn station, and the grim, badly maintained reality of the place itself. Those brick arches are probably the oldest remainder of the original station, and it wouldn’t surprise me were they to be Victorian. They should be made a feature, but they are decaying, stained and lie mostly unnoticed. Even some of the lights above them have given up.
Closer to the central area of the same platform, a gap in the above-platform construction lets the rain and wind howl in, concentrated and focussed by the angles and surfaces. No shiny cladding here, as it’s not outward facing. Just original 60s concrete and cheap white cladding.
A notice on the platform says ‘Mind the gap’ – the credibility gap is more hazardous.
November 21st – A late spin around Brownhills after a long day, and at night this place still fascinates me. The lines of Silver Court are still otherworldly and night, and the vies of the canal from the Pier Street Bridge are ones I keep returning to.
After a grinding day, it’s good to be home.
November 19th – At the other end of a crowded journey, the barren beauty of Walsall Station at night from Platform 1. Vaguely brutal 70s red brick architecture, vanishing points, extreme perspective, lights, hard surfaces and a little rain.
It’s that late night feelings thing again.
You can keep your Grand Central new New Street. I’d rather have this, any day of the week.
November 19th – The Queen herself today travelled to Birmingham (by train, which won’t have been delayed and will have had a working toilet) to open a station that hadn’t closed and has merely been subject to having a retail opportunity badly assembled on top, and is still unfinished.
Brenda won’t have had to walk up a static escalator, or pull a pushchair up the stairs. She won’t have seen the dingy, grim end of platforms where the 1980s access bridge hasn’t even been granted a clean down.
Someone once said that Royalty must think everywhere smells of fresh paint. In Birmingham tonight, on a late journey from home, the overpowering smell was more reminiscent of the farmyard.
Oh, and Phil – we do speak English. Chances are Shakespeare would sound more like our tongue than the fabricated received English of the Windsors (and spousal attachments).
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