November 30th – Whilst sat waiting at the lights on the junction of Wednesbury Road and Corporation Street in Walsall yesterday, I noticed something I’d not really absorbed before – it’s evident just why this road was called Wednesbury Road. The twin church towers of the hilltop town are clearly visible in the distance. I must have come this way hundred of times but never noticed before. The Black Country is a whole lot more interconnected than we often think.
November 30th – The Spring Cottage, once a lively, if rather rough pub sat on a major junction in the middle of Shelfield, is undergoing conversion into a Co-op store. Nearly complete now, it looks like only the car park resurfacing needs to be completed. I’m pleased to say that although the building is of no historical merit, efforts have been made to preserve it’s features as a prominent landmark. The wood and plaster cladding has been carefully restored, and the shopfront installed sympathetically to the nature of the building.
It’s nice to see such a prominent, once-derelict landmark get a new lease of life – and the Co-op stores aren’t bad at all. I wish the owners well.
November 29th – Walsall is an odd place architecturally. I love The Crossing at St. Paul’s – the former church cum shopping centre, and the wee piazza outside it where the Christmas tree sits. I don’t mind the bus station – at night, you can see what the architect was getting at. It’s all beautifully lit up… but the paving, the mixture of slate and pale grey granite composite blocks, arranged into stripes, to me at least is horrid. Further into what’s now known as ‘The Civic Quarter’ – ‘We ay pretentious, we’m not’ – there are the most horrid street lighting columns I have ever seen. I think the street furniture and paving – which clash, eye-jarringly – were purchased and some kind of urban designers fire sale. Walsall, on a civic level, does this sort of thing with alarming regularity. Weird.
November 29th – hopefully, I’ve finished with the train commuting for a while and am now working in the Black Country for a few weeks… I miss these commutes. Today though, was hell. I was headed due southwest into a very strong, insistent headwind. It took 65 minutes to do a journey that usually takes only 45. I was fully loaded, and at full tilt downhill under Navvie’s Bridge on the A461 Lichfield Road I was topping a heady 8.5 mph. The weather was grim and overcast, but the rain didn’t arrive until mid afternoon. Setting out home after the rains, the sunset was incredible but very, very short. Here near Wednesbury, the light glistened off the wet roads and made everything precious.
November 28th – Christmas is bearing down upon us. Last week, I recorded the unlit Christmas tree, ready to be decorated in St John’s churchyard, Walsall Wood; a week later there are lights in the tree and wrapped round the lampposts down the high street. It’s not the fast return of Christmas that bothers me, it’s the increasingly short gaps between them that bothers me. Humbug.
November 27th – The sunset was also good at the old railway bridge over the canal near the old cement works in Brownhills. This is an odd bridge, and now conveys national cycle route 5 from the canal below to the former level crossing at Engine Lane. It has odd, reduced level parapets and a very scant guard rail, but has been well-known to generations of Brownhills Kids. Here, looking west, it could have easily been a summer evening; not a soul about and just the sound of ducks and coots in the reeds. A peaceful spot.
November 26th – Now, this has snagged my interest. Spinning out through Lichfield after lunch, I cycled down Wheel Lane. I’ve never noticed these two dramatic, intricate semis before; there has to be a story here. I don’t think they’re as old as one might think; those chimney pots and chimneys look inter-war to me, yet the apparent timber frame looks old. I just love them; the one on the right looks to have been repointed recently – that must have been an intricate job.
Anyone know anything about them?
November 26th – Passing through Lichfield for lunch, I spotted this unusual shot across the rooftops from the car park at the rear of Bakers Lane. Lichfield is such a photographed city that sometimes it can be hard to find an original angle. I like this one, because it shows how busy the roofline of the city is, and how, from many angles downtown, St. Mary’s dwarfs the cathedral. I would imagine that realisation has annoyed the odd lofty cleric from time to time…
November 23rd – Conversely, at sunset I was in Telford with six minutes before my train came in. I spotted this sunset skyline and just had to crack out the camera and gorillapod. Telford – as many will be aware – is not a place I’m terribly fond of, but on occasions, it throws up surprising beauty. It was again warm and clear, and the urban lighting and harsh surfaces made for an oddly iridescent scene. Magical.
November 23rd – The rain had gone this morning, and it was the first truly clear morning for a week or more. There was a hint of frost, but the breeze and air were oddly warm, yet hard and clear. The lights of Lichfield and Shenstone sparkled in the distance as I poured myself liquid down the Chester Road to Blake Street. There were many good photos I could have taken of this dawn, but sadly, I was running late and had a train to catch, so I settled for a dawn shot of the twin Sutton Masts and Hill Hook from the station platform. The sky really was like this, is was gorgeous. Now the digital switchover is done, wonder when they’ll take down the temporary transmitter?
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