December 17th – Returning home through a darkened, very wet Brownhills. A generator was quietly ticking over by the waterside, and there was the clatter of Tesco unloading, and the distant windy sweep of the odd car on the High Street, but little other evidence of humans.
Brownhills looked somnambulant, peaceful and homely, and it was good to see.
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March 6th – Passing through Walsall as dusk fell, I passed by Town Wharf. Whilst the paving and general infrastructure is looking a little tired here these days it’s looking a lot more active in recent months. Now the Wharfinger’s Cottage is occupied, and there’s more on the waterfront, it’s becoming quite a nice place to be.
There are still derelict buildings here though: to the left the old factories still cast a long physical and economic shadow.
September 18th – Riding through the backstreets of central Walsall, it’s getting distinctly autumnal. I keep thinking it’s too early, but then, we’re very nearly two thirds into September now, so I suppose not.
Here on the corner of Charles Street it looked lovely, and not having been here for many years, it’s changed a bit, too. Last time I was here the flats on the left didn’t exist and there was a row of Victorian factories in some decay. I remember well a cafe here I used to use a fair bit.
Ah well, nothing stays the same and time keeps moving on.
February 1st – I returned to Walsall in the early evening, and had to pop up to the Manor Hospital, so took a line through the Wharf, which looks better now there’s some development around it. Nice to see the Wharf Bar renewed after it’s recent closure, and with the new cinema, restaurants and bars, at last the area seems alive after years of seeming almost somnambulant.
That hotel, though. Can’t abide the architecture. It’s like some soviet secret service interrogation headquarters… and I’m a fan of Brutalism. Ugh.
February 10th – A nice day, and on a mission to check out something at the Waterfront in Walsall.Amongst all the new stuff here as part of the cinema development – a few restaurants and bars – there is promised to be a Hungry Horse, a more traditional style pub. In an online discussion, we couldn’t work out where it was likely to be, so I swung past this morning.
It looks likely to be in the units closest the canal, I think: everyone loves a pub with a canal view.
Bit concerned about the unfenced paving to the canal edge, though: I can visualise something rolling off that before long.
April 10th – I was in Brum early for an appointment and, on impulse, hopped on the train to Stourbridge and cycled home along the canals. I took the route along the Stourbridge and Dudley lines, through the nine locks, Brierley Hill and the Netherton Tunnel, then over to Smethwick, where I rode home through the Sandwell Valley and NCN 5.
The Netherton Tunnel remains a psychological and sensory endurance test. I love it.
The canals and day were lovely – but I can feel the weather was just about to break. I’m glad I caught this last week; I’m rejuvenated and back in touch with places I thought were lost.
Good to see the peacock butterfly out and showing so well, and that heron was under the M5 at Oldbury: he was furious with me for spoiling his fishing.
June 13th – I cycled home from work on a sunny afternoon, and called to do some shopping on the way. I noted that the Pier Street footbridge has had a clean and is the process of getting a lick of paint ready for the canal festival in a couple of weeks. It’s nice to see, and Brian Stringer has been working hard to make this happen.
The marina has also had a mow and tidy up too. It’s a nice spot on a sunny day, it really is.
January 15th – I keep forgetting the Waterfront in Walsall. It’s hardly surprising, really, as blocked off by the New Art Gallery and a large Poundland, you wouldn’t know it was there from Park Street. This evening, I took a quick sweep through, and thought the lights were nice at the Wharf Bar. Still can’t warm to the the boxy, Lubyanka-like hotel, though. It’s bloody hideous.
November 29th – While we’re on the subject of architectural disasters, the new Premier Inn on the waterfront development near the art gallery looks better at night – mainly because it’s grim black colour and peculiar yellow window frames are muted by the darkness. Nearly ready to open, the lights were on and made for an interesting shot or two over the canal basin. Over a decade since development here began, the basin is still overlooked by derelict and unoccupied buildings. Not a great success story, it has to be said.
October 13th – As if to hammer home my point, Town Wharf, across the basin from the New Art Gallery. This is a new hotel. It looks like something thrown up in Tito’s Yugoslavia. It’s hideous, cheap and nasty. It opens in a couple of weeks – why not come and stay? Affording excellent views of the derelict and burnt out factory over the water, it’s sure to be a big tourist draw…
Walsall deserves so much better than this shit.
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