August 23rd – The week took an unexpected turn as I found myself working late. Returning in the dark quite late at night, I decided to try some night photography. This normally comes with autumn, but I guess a little practice doesn’t hurt, and I found the activity quite relaxing after a stressful, long day at work.
August 22nd – The late summer sun was gorgeous this morning. Warming my back at 8AM on my way to work, I felt oddly alive and content for a Monday Morning. Walsall is surprisingly green, and this sunshine and shade aspect of the Lichfield Road near the Butts caught my eye. Oh, to be in England in the summertime.
August 16th – About the only positive thing to come from the fire at the former Jabez Cliff factory in Walsall was that the traffic was static as I headed into Walsall at 8:00am next morning, due to the Ring Road west being shut on safety grounds. This pretty much gridlocked the traffic fright back to Rushall, which allowed me to skip past it all the way into Walsall. Having the ring road to myself for the first couple of legs was fun, too.
August 16th – When I made my predictions last month for the next historically significant Walsall building to die tragically in a fire, I forgot about the former Jabez Cliff works. A beautiful victorian building, left to decay with lax security. It had become a magnet for vagrants and junkies, so I guess it was only a matter of time. Yesterday, it was pretty much gutted in a very large fire, the extent of which was clear as I passed this morning. By my return this evening, the beautiful frontage had been demolished. Still, it’ll be much easier to build new stuff on the site now that the troublesome old pile is gone… and with it, yet more of our precious heritage.
Why does nobody in power at Walsall care enough to stop this happening?
August 15th – The digital traffic signs, recently installed on the edges of Walsall town centre have been controversial, costly, and rather pointless. Since installation, they’ve either been blank, or displaying such crucial messages as ‘Tiredness kills – Take a break’. Today, with a major fire in central Walsall, they got chance to display vital road closure information, which made no difference whatsoever to the traffic, which was gridlocked at rush hour. It doesn’t help that several of the message displays – like this one on the edge of The Butts – are situated at a point where it’s virtually impossible to take any preventative measures to avoid the problem. Design in action.
August 12th – Walsall has many surprising corners and features that surprise the unwary. Like Wednesbury, it’s central focus is a considerable hill, in Walsall’s case topped by a single, handsome church with a dramatic, imposing approach from the street below. St. Matthews itself is a gorgeous building, to which I will return, but it’s a dramatic symbol of Walsall. Soon, it’s view from the town below will be restored following the demolition of the despised Overstrand Restaurant.
August 3rd – Pushing my bike across the Bridge pedestrianised zone in Walsall, at about 5pm on a Wednesday. A cycle cop is dawdling here, clearly riding their bicycle in a pedestrian zone. How ca we seriously expect the police to enforce the cycle prohibition here if they ignore it themselves? Yobs cycling down Park Street is a serious problem, which, as a responsible cyclist, I expect them to deal with.
This really annoys me. I expect them to set an example. I’m ready for the rash of excuses you normally get for complaining about such things… considering I was once threatened with a fixed penalty ticket for sitting astride my bike whilst using a cashpoint in Cannock, bring it on.
August 3rd – Walsall Council seem surprised that the new Tesco hypermarket on Wisemore isn’t leading a regeneration of the town, and instead, seems to be sucking the life out of it. It’s obvious really. As this view from in front of the bus station shows, Tesco couldn’t give a toss about the town. The entire store has been built to face the new ring road, helpfully constructed by the council to deliver shoppers to the retail behemoth and take them away again without ever having to interact with the rest of the town. They haven’t even been bothered enough to put a sign on the rear of the building. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a development where contempt for the host community has ever been so wilfully incorporated in the design.
Presumably, the planning committee looked at the design and thought ‘Yeah, that looks OK.’. Bewildering.
July 22nd – How to get rid of a listed building. These masons are carefully removing examples of significant stonework from the Mellish Road Methodist Church, which was sadly damaged during the operation to fill limestone caverns under the Butts area of North Walsall 22 years ago. Never well built, it suffered from cheap, ambitious building techniques, common to many such churches. Having taken the substantial compensation, the original owners sold the church on to developers, whose attempts to do anything with the site were roundly rebuffed by he planning committees for 20 years. Finally, after vandalism, decay and a visit from the municipal arsonists, the church is being demolished, clearing the way for the owners to build whatever they want.
Oddly, Walsall Council paints this as some kind of triumph, when in reality it’s a sickening, depressing example of how commercial interests outflank attempts at development control. But it’s more than that – a decade ago, an application was made to turn the church into a community centre, which was declined, too. Had that been approved, these men wouldn’t be taking apart this sad, decaying building now.
July 21st – Walsall has plenty of abandoned buildings of historical interest. Sadly, our civic masters don’t have the best record of caring for them, and seem to have learned little about protecting heritage from developer’s aspirations over the years. The parish church, dramatically built atop a hill overlooking the town, has it’s aspect sullied by The Overstrand restaurant, built four decades ago, and is now similarly blighted by a hideous Asda shed carelessly permitted five years ago. We never learn.
A couple of weeks ago, town officials were having a ‘crisis meeting’ about the last remnants of the workhouse that stand unloved and derelict outside the new hospital. Once part of the old one, this dramatic building is empty and rotting. I can see why a crisis meeting might be be necessary, after all it’s a bugger when Victorian buildings unexpectedly materialise overnight.
Fear not though, as Walsall has it’s own way of dealing with it’s inconvenient past, often it gets burned to the ground. Trembling before the arsonist’s zippo are several inconveniently located old buildings including Lime House and the former Walkways community centre. The council is now applying to demolish Lime House, but overactive firebugs will probably beat the developer vandals to it.
Welcome to Walsall where our past makes fine fuel.
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