November 1st – On the other hand around by St. Jame’s Church, things were atmospheric in a different way. None of the street lighting in the paths through the church grounds is working, and the area is dark, peaceful and atmospheric. The photography was poor, but I liked the shadows, the sodium light and the otherworldliness. Must come back and do this with a better camera.
January 27th – The snow, thanks to heavy rain and a sudden ramp in temperature – had gone. Only the remnants of snowmen remained, melancholy mementoes of the whiteness of the week before. The consequent darkness around St. James Church shocked me in it’s foreboding.
I’d been to drop something off to a friend, and the weather was wet, warm and inclement. I cycled up the dark pathway from School Avenue, up past the cemeteries and churchyard, and the church itself was unoccupied at 5:45pm on a Sunday, which I found oddly sad. Brownhills Church is one I’ve always had difficulty with architecturally; It’s not ugly, and it’s not remarkable. Apart from an odd spire and hideous extension, it’s pretty plain, really. It’s position, however, is excellent. It’s like the centre of the town was built around it, and the warren of streets take curious right angles around the grounds.
September 23rd – A foul afternoon. I popped over to a freind’s house to do some bike spannering, and it was raining hard. Brownhills was hardly photogenic… But passing St. James Church I noticed the lights were on and a service was In progress. St. James is a good example of recovered memory – for most of my adult life I’d have sworn it had a clock, that chimed. I’d have put money on it. It was only after photographing it for an article 2 years ago that I realised it had no such thing. What I’d actually been hearing on still, summer nights was the three faced liar on the old Council House.
September 15th – On this site in Short Street, Brownhills, stood St. James old people’s home, a modern facility built in the 1970s to serve the town. Local authority owned, it was well loved. Since the huge cuts in social care, the desire to offload the expensive care of the vulnerable has led to outsourcing. All such residential homes were closed in Walsall, some care transferred to the private sector and some to a new building run by Housing 21 at Anchor Bridge, called Knaves Court. The creation of Knaves Court is a wonderful thing, but had St. James been kept, we would have been able to care for more vulnerable folk, not less as is now the case. All such homes that were closed were demolished very quickly, presumably to prevent a reversal of policy.
The land once busy, now lies derelict and unloved.
A little known scandal.
July 4th – People will tell you Brownhills is ugly, dirty, post industrial, a hellhole. It is variously none, all, and some of these things. But like the rest of north and central Walsall, it has one surprising trait that is often unseen until pointed out: it’s very, very green. Looking over a field of young wheat at Sandhills, over the canal and Millfield Estate at Catshill, there’s the spire of St. James’s Church, right there, nestling in the trees. Between the rooftops are more shades of green than you’d find in a pantone swatch book. It’s the same if you get up on Church Hill in Walsall. The most urban bits are host to the most remarkable trees, yet the seem to go largely unnoticed.
In case you’re wondering, last year this field held spuds. Crop rotation in action, there…
March 21st – Brownhills churchyard cemeteries are a disgrace. The grounds maintenance here is, quite frankly, appalling, and something I’ve noted before. What annoys me most in that the memorial garden currently in use has ridiculous rules enforced strictly about what folk can leave on memorials, apparently to maintain the appearance of the churchyard – yet relatives, who’ve paid a considerable fee to have their loved ones interred here – have to suffer untidiness, uncut grass and mud. This is a scandal, pure and simple. This is where an awful lot of Brownhills folk are remembered – it it too hard to show them the respect in death they deserved in life?
July 5th – St. James Church is the parish church of Brownhills. Designed by architect G.T. Robinson, it has stood in the quiet heart of Brownhills since 1850. A cruciform design, it is built out of red sandstone blocks and features a distinctive, odd-looking spire. Sadly, like many churches in the Lichfield Diocese, it has suffered the indignity of having a hideous, unsympathetic extension bolted onto it. Whoever was responsible for this aberration must surely feel remorse.
Funny thing, though; up until I took the photograph I could have sworn the church had a clock. It clearly does not. Funny how you mind plays tricks.
April 13th – The fields at Lanes Farm (or Home Farm) have been ploughed and planted now. Looking over from the Lichfield Road, I noticed the spire of Brownhills Church was clearly visible.
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