Tag: Lammas Land

March 10th – I had to pop to the garden centre in Shenstone, which always grinds my gears, as there’s no suitable bike parking and the place seems to be cunningly and cynically engineered to hoover money out of the pockets of the older folk who seem to be it’s target customers, mostly in exchange for expensive items one could find cheaper elsewhere. Walking in with concessions of a pet shop, 3 or 4 clothing brands and other such stuff, the actual garden stuff seems a sideline.

I returned from the garden centre grumpy and decided to travel the length of the Lammas Land in Shestone, running from the Birmingham Road to just near Shenstone Station.

Spring is trying to start here, and pleasingly, the daffodils were out, but on the whole, the place was still very much of the winter. I stopped to look at the Shining Stone of Shenstone, which looks no less like a silver turd every time I see it. It’s a peculiar thing.

I was intrigued by the purple alder-like tree I found there – with purple male catkins and the familiar more globular female ones. If the leaves match that will be an extraordinary sight.

January 5th – The Lammas Land isn’t at it’s best this time of year, but it is still nice to ride along the quiet trail. Running the length of the Footherley Brook along the northern perimeter of the village, it’s a lovely community project and facility, of which the villagers are rightly proud.

I’m not sure, however, about the Shining Stone. A stainless steel sculpture standing in the brook by an old pedestrian bridge on the footpath to Ashcroft Lane, it looks like some alien dropping polluting the water. 

Put in place in 2002 and designed by artist Jo Naden, it’s said to take inspiration from the derivation of the name ‘Shenstone’, meaning shining or beautiful stone. It was stolen by metal thieves in 2010, to be found in a scrapyard in the Black Country, from whence it was returned (the material it’s made from isn’t that valuable as it happens).

The inscription reads ‘A flock of birds settle the green field re-echoes where there is a brisk bright stream’, an Irish traditional verse.

So help me god, it looks like some metallic turd. But the way the water swirls around it is fascinating.

An odd thing, to be sure.