To my shame, some weeks ago reader Steve Hickman asked about the road changes around Stonall in the early part of last century, and ever since, I’ve had a post almost ready to go. My work, however, was eclipsed by the excellent commentary provided by Julian Ward-Davies who’s the outstanding amateur landscape historian behind popular, painstakingly researched and reasoned paper ‘The Lost Lake of Stonnall’. Well, Julian is back with a new, even more fascinating thesis. This man is a star of local historical writing and deserves all the exposure we can give him.
Stonnall is a picturesque village located to the south-west of Lichfield, to the north of Birmingham, to the east of Walsall and to the south of Brownhills. The village is divided into Upper and Lower Stonnall, representing the high and low ends of the valley that it occupies….
