Workhouse – BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

#365daysofbiking The villages of the evening

December 7th – Christmas is starting to ramp up now and I find myself increasingly on errands and trips to sort things out for the upcoming holiday, and so it was this evening when I had to visit Shenstone, to collect some stuff I’d ordered and check out a present in the huge, soulless garden centre there.

Shenstone and the lanes between there and home were gorgeous in the night, same as they ever were: From the welcoming dignity of the pubs to the beauty of the old workhouse. And then, the gothic horror of the church, which I’m still not used to seeing without it’s massive, stately yew.

It was nice to be in these lanes on a relatively dry night for a change. They made a pleasant contrast to the consumer hell of a garden centre that seemed to specialise in everything except … gardening.

Am I turning into The Grinch? I think I might be.

This journal is moving home. Find out more by clicking here

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2PTPifD
via IFTTT

#365daysofbiking Solid air:

December 11th – Heading back to work after an errand into Walsall at lunchtime, the air was misty, smoggy and heavy and caught the weak sunlight in an unusual way.

I could feel the exhaust fumes trapped low to the ground, but the effect was quite beautiful.

Sad to see the old Workhouse Guardian’s Office, listed but still rotting and vacant, marooned before the monolithic Walsall Manor Hospital.

As far as I know its the only part of the Victorian municipal workhouse in Walsall to survive, and is a remarkable building. Cruelly stranded and ignored by the hospital redevelopment, it sits forlorn an lost, waiting for a use to emerge.

Even down on it’s uppers, it’s a gorgeous building still.

This journal is moving home. Click here for more information.

from Tumblr https://ift.tt/2PyZPtd

via IFTTT

January 6th – A fair commute in both directions for once, in fact almost sunny.

On the way, the sun was trapped above low smog but I didn’t mind – as I came through central Walsall on the ring road, it made everything look beautiful. I don’t know if it was just in the haze or my mind, but everything was suffused in a delicious yellow, soft light.

The Workhouse Guardian’s Office in front of the Manor Hospital may still be derelict, and gradually being carried to dust, but it’s at times like this it regains some of the lost stature.

Could do with a few more days like this, please.

20th November – Still clinging on, and looking handsome despite the decay, the mellow, early winter sunshine lit up the Workhouse Guardian’s Office beautifully. Derelict for some years, this listed building is marooned in front of the new Manor Hospital on Pleck Road in Walsall.

I wish someone would find a suitable use and rejuvenate this lovely edifice; every detail of it is gorgeous from the stained glass windows to the beautifully ornate finial and weathervane. But such old buildings are expensive to renovate and convert, and in such an unusual physical position uses must be very limited indeed.

In the meantime, this Victorian wonder is being gently carried to dust, Havershambling away unloved, except by the few who see it’s beauty. I pray the arsonists don’t spot it.

April 3rd – The poor air quality brouhaha at the moment isn’t all hype. As a chap given to a degree of sinus trouble, it’s hell out there at the moment. There’s an appreciable wind, and the air isn’t wet like in normal mist; yet it feels oxygen-less, like being stuck in an unventilated house with the heating on. It makes me feel breathless faster, and stings my eyes, as well as causing a blocked nose.

I’ve never experienced days like these before. I’m used to traffic fumes in the city in high summer, and the effect it has on my hayfever, but I’ve never seen this before.

The New Ring Road in Walsall looked ethereal and grey, even dystopian. But I did notice one thing; that’s a fine weathervane on the roof of the old Workhouse Guardians office, there.

January 19th – On the way back, I passed Chesterfield Lodge on Raikes Lane. It always looks so peaceful and welcoming at night, but on Victorian maps, this was marked as a workhouse. Whether it was this actual building or a predecessor, I never quite worked out. I’m still hoping Kate Cardigan of Lichfield Lore might weave some of her investigative magic here and find out the truth one day.

It’s an absolutely gorgeous house, that’s for sure.

January 18th – But flung into the modern age we were, for better of worse. This was once the site of a workhouse, so feared in the memory of old Walsallians that one elderly lady I knew, when confused and aged, swore she’d not let her family take her there. They were actually trying to take her to the Manor Hospital for a checkup, the older establishment utilising many of the workhouse buildings.

In the last decade or two, it all changed; first a new Accident & Emergency, then a new hospital, provided by the wonders of magic beans and PFI. This shiny new building, filled with wonderful staff and equipment, is somehow redolent of Art Deco in it’s night time luminescence, yet I fear it may yet, through its cost, render the NHS in Walsall back into servitude.

Progress, eh?

November 15th – Another hidden history exists in the sleepy hamlet of Chesterfield, between Wall and Shenstone, south of Lichfield. The welcoming view of Chesterfield Lodge, now a high class, well maintained private residence would never belie it’s past as the parish workhouse. I think this is a gorgeous building, and it looks wonderful at night, the glow welcoming in a very dark, narrow lane.

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.

April 25th – Chesterfield Lodge, a handsome, victorian house just round the corner from Chesterfield itself, in Raikes Lane – is an intriguing place. Now a secluded, tree-shrouded oasis of calm complete with large lake and tennis court, it was once a workhouse. I’ve not been able to find out much about it, but it just goes to show that many buildings have intriguing histories that we may be unaware of…