Galleries

June 13th – Foxglove is one of those odd flowers steeped in half-truth and folklore. I spotted this lone one this evening as I winched myself up Shire Oak Hill near Sandhills.Poisonous? Yes, very. Deadly? Can be, particularly the young leaves. Beautiful? Certainly. I adore foxgloves. They should never be picked, and children should be taught to avoid them, but they have great medicinal use, as well as having the more sinister reputation that once christened them ‘dead mans bells’. Digitalis produces medically active compounds that can be made into cardiac drugs, and also a steroid used in the detection of DNA and RNA. Truly a remarkable plant.

June 13th – I’d been in Tyseley for a meeting, then hopped back up the Cross City Line to make an appointment in Lichfield. Cycling back, the weather, which had been pretty agreeable, turned quite grim and it started to rain. The countryside looked so green, and the views were unexpectedly cinematic with a sudden rain-haze softening outlines and changing the sky to darker and darker shades. Luckily, I got home before the heavens really opened. 

Can we please have a bit of summer? Just for a bit? 

Jun 12th – Chasetown Memorial Park is a place I hadn’t noticed before. Passing at 6pm on a dull weekday evening, I caught the sight of a bowls match in progress, and stopped to take a shufty. I love watchig bowls, and I think its decline as a sport played in municipal parks is terribly sad. Like village cricket, it’s a gentle, genteel thing, and very relaxing to watch. This seems a well kept green and I did like the Memorial Park. The war memorial itself is sombre, as you’d expect, but beautiful. Chasetown is often a place ignored passing through, but there are gems here, and I’m sure, more I’ve yet to discover. Right next door is the wonderful former mining college, now community hub, and a fine facility indeed. Inside is a small but touching display of mining mementos and ephemera.
If these photos seem a bit… odd, it’s because my camera battery went flat and died, so they were taken on my phone. 

June 12th – I believe this delightful yellow flower to be a flag iris (although I could be wrong). At this time of year, they flourish on the water margins of canals, ponds and reed beds, bringing a dash of yellow to the waterscape. I love these flowers. This patch, near Anglesey Bridge on the canal near Brownhills, seem to get larger and more impressive every year.

June 11th – Summer’s cauldron continues to simmer. I noticed whist climbing the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood that the wild honeysuckle – or woodbine – I talked about choking the lupins was growing over the guard rails on the souther flank of the bridge. A riot of colour, these gorgeous blooms, when fully open, will smell wonderful. I never thought I’d see such a thing growing wild in this post-industrial landscape.

June 10th – Whilst at Chasewater, I played with the sweep panorama function on my trusty Panasonic TZ30 camera. It’s a great piece of kit of which I’m very fond, and a huge step on from it’s predecessor. The panorama function, however, has been a disappointment. Not as reliable as the one on Sony pocket cameras, it seems to have trouble with synchronisation, and can generate poor images. Hoping this will be fixed in a firmware update, it does work best on sunny days like this, and these results weren’t bad. 

June 9th – I never tire of the view from the canal at Newtown, near Brownhills. Overlooking   the rolling countrysde towards Hammerwich, the church and windmill there are not the only landmarks visible. If you stand in just the right spot, on a clear day, you can see the 3 spires of Lichfield Cathedral visible through the Crane Brook valley. Right now, it’s green and verdant; but this is a great view in all four seasons, constantly changing in character. One of the great unknown gems of Brownhills.

June 8th – Returning from Walsall via the canal (it seemed to be drive like a moron day, and yet again, nobody had informed me), I noticed that with all the rain, the lupins were out. I love these flowers, and they used to grow with greater profusion here than they do now. On this bank of the new pond at Clayhanger, they seem to be being choked by a somewhat voracious growth of honeysuckle. The dilemma contemplating this is somewhat delicious considering the scarred industrial heritage of this land.

This, of course, was once the foot of a spoil heap.

June 8th – The devastation of the Great British public house continues unabated. In recent weeks two pubs have been lost at Longdon, Staffordshire, the Railway at Pelsall has closed and Brownhills own Royal ‘Middle’ Oak is up for sale. The Hatherton Arms closed some weeks ago, and now stands as a forlorn gateway to Walsall. Once a lovely little community boozer, it is interesting architecturally, and had a George V memorial brick set into the lounge wall. Sadly, it doesn’t look like reopening anytime soon, and would tenure that it’s probably awaiting the ultimate death by fire that so many abandoned Walsall buildings seem to succumb to. 
A great tragedy. 

June 7th – Birmingham New Street. This is Birmingham New Street. All regular travellers through Birmingham’s derided main station will recognise that tannoy jingle. I have a love-hate relationship with the place; dark, grubby, overcrowded, a nightmare on a bike or for the elderly or disabled. Yet, unlike so many stations, the layout is logical, compact and easy to grasp. It just carries way too much traffic and we need a new station – possibly on Eastside – to relieve it, then maybe the platforms could be reduced in number and widened, some natural light could be let in. 

There’s history, here, too, but not many realise. The arches at the end of platform 2 and 3 are a remnant of the original Victorian Station, as are many of the retaining cutting walls. The signal box – a remarkable Brutalist style structure designed by Bicknell & Hamilton to resemble an electrical component, is listed and a wonderful thing. As developers tear away at the upper levels, the ‘regeneration’ (how I hate that word) of this much misunderstood transport hub will not solve any of it’s functional problems, but I’m still rather fond of the old dump, if I’m honest.