Tag: tower

December 17th – I had to nip into Eddington early in the day, so I hopped on the train and sped down the Cross City Line. As the dawn threatened to break over Hill Hook, I caught this shot of Sutton Coldfield transmitter through an open train door.

This week hasn’t been great weather wise, and in such dark days t can be hard to find beauty. But I was glad I saw this,

May 7th – I nipped out on an errand from work at lunchtime, and fate had it that I’d get caught in heavy rain. I saw it gather over Wednesbury, but the relentless wind of late had gone, and it felt warm. Once I was soaked, it wasn’t unpleasant, and it felt like a warm, spring storm.

By the time of my return, the sky had cleared, the sun was out and St Lawrence Church in DArlaston looked beautiful through the greening trees of Victoria Park.

If you don’t like the May weather, just wait a few minutes.

April 7th – Sad to see the decaying relics of a lost period of history I feel we shouldn’t let pass unrecorded. The old ROC post at Elford is in a sorry state. Open, vandalised, robbed. Once the pride of the volunteers who would man it in event of a nuclear conflict, it’s just now a lump of subterranean concrete and metal that nobody knows what to do with.

In similarly reduced circumstances but in better condition, the microwave relay tower at No Mans Heath is looking bare now. When I was younger, this unmarked, unacknowledged communications installation was bristling with horn antenna, dishes and drums; now it carries very little. A few telemetry and mobile data links, and that’s it. 

In terms of engineering complexity, the framework of the tower is hugely intricate, now to no purpose. I suppose, like the ROC post, eventually it will disappear; testament to times dangerous in a different way to our own.

February 12th – Darlaston and its remarkably wonderful architecture are stunning, and a joy to the heart even on the dullest winter days. Passing Rectory Avenue – the cul-de-sac next to the Post Office – I was struck by the beautiful red terracotta brick townhouses here I’d not really stopped and studied before. Foursquare, bold, architecturally confident, these were expensive houses, but not overly flashy. Beautiful.

Beyond them, between here and the church, the mysterious and wonderful tower of the Columbarium. 

Such wonder in such a small, unassuming Black Country town.

February 4th – We’re in the season of great sunsets again. Caught on the way home, a glimpse over the black country of an old-style GSM transmitter in Darlaston. I love the contrast of the lattice-work tower with then sky and streetlights behind.

I don’t know why, but I love this sort of stuff – radio towers, pylons and suchlike. They can be so beautifully elegant, and so often derided and overlooked.

January 17th – Passing through Walsall on an errand in the afternoon, I looked at something that’s ever-present, yet I seldom pay attention to; the Town Hall bell tower. Rumours say it was supposed to be a clock tower, but was never designed as such and is home to a carillon of bels, which sound rather splendid.

Faded, faintly gothic and well built, like much of Walsall, it’ll scrub up just fine one day. It’s also home to a pair of peregrines, who loaf their days out in all the local high spots dropping pigeon remnants on the townspeople below.

Excellent birds.

August 7th – I had to nip into Brum on my way home from work, and hopped on a train to Shenstone on the way back. I haven’t been this way much lately, and the familiar wooded hill with church tower – just the one in summer, the other being obscured by trees – looked splendid in the early evening sunshine. I love how you can see the gargoyles at the vertices from a very long way away.

The station and it’s complex, partially mansard roof is still gorgeous, too, despite being neutered of it’s tall, elegant chimneys several decades ago.

Shenstone is gorgeous, and there are few better places to be on a warm, sunny evening.

April 18th – A great long ride today, on a warm, wonderful spring day. I headed out to Honey Hill, at No Man’s Heath via Canwell, Hints, Hopwas and Harlaston, returning via Netherseal, Lullington, Edingale and Lichfield. On the way, I stopped, as I always do, at the old ROC post at Harlaston. It was still in a very sorry state, but I was reminded of something. 

Stopping for a drink and a breather at the top of Willowbottom Lane, just by the bunker, I looked down and noticed a barely visible square of bricks and concrete. This is another reminder of past conflict, for these are the remains of a second world war anti-aircraft watchpost.

High on the hill above Tamworth, it’s an excellent spot for it. A sobering thing on a sunny, spring afternoon.

June 9th – Sad to note that like other towers in the backbone microwave network, Turner’s Hill mast in Rowley Regis is looking very bare now. The BT Tower in Birmingham now has next to no antenna on it, and No Man’s Heath and Pye Green are also looking sparse too. Turner’s Hill has only a few left, and like the others, are symbolic monuments to a past communications era, a lapsed cold war and the increasing ubiquity of the internet. I loved these installations, they fascinate and haunt me, but like so much cold war technology, their time has now gone.