Tag: monument

September  22nd – Unusually, I had to visit Cradley on a work errand. I used to spend a huge amount of time in this busy little town, but haven’t been to visit in nearly a decade.

It changed, without me, as places do. Some familiar things remained – some shops, landmarks, factories – but there’s a shiny new bus station, lots of redevelopment an an interesting memorial to Mary MacArthur the trade unionist who fought so famously here.

The statues is by the same artist who made the Walsall Wood ones, and whilst the thought is there, it’s no Morris and it looks like money for old chain, if not rope. Oh well.

The High Street is suffering like they all are, but retains it’s quirkiness and frenetic air of business.

Around the corner, in Wood Lane, Griffin and Woodhouse still make chain to moor the world – some of it huge.

It felt sad to be back in a place I once haunted but now don’t really know at all well. Time moves on, with or without us.

Apriul 12th – I must have passed this hundreds of times without noticing it. Facing the footpath on the Birmingham Road, just on the edge of the Highwayman Car Park at Shenstone Woodend, this Ordnance Survey monument. Cast Iron, now at a jaunty angle, it sows a benchmark in the absence of a building to carve one into.

I had no idea these ornate cast iron ones existed, and they seem relatively rare. A fine, uniquely British thing.

June 12th – Amongst the surprisingly large amount of odd historical curios in Brownhills, this decaying, cast-iron milepost occupies a special place in my heart. Sitting at the side of the A5 Watling Street, right at the top of the Black Path as it has done for decades, it points brokenly to Chester and Salop, marking their distances are 62 and 30 miles respectively. I don’t know what it pointed to in the other direction, for that side has always been broken in my living memory. This is the only milepost I’ve ever seen designed like this, most locally are four-sided low, minimalist monuments, whereas this was once semi-ornate and must have cost a lot of money to make.

I wonder who placed it and what it’s origins were. It would be nice if it could be restored, but I doubt many folk even know of it’s existence, which is sad. I can remember sitting on the sign as a child waiting for a relative to come from Brownhills Comprehensive, nearby…