A little-known feature of the area of the border country between Staffordshire and the West Midlands at Pelsall is the Timberland trail. Inaugurated in 2003 as a ten mile walking route that took in some of the old working routes of the area around North Pelsall and Great Wyrley, the trail comes through some of the great historical industrial sites of the last 200 years, including the area around the former Grove Colliery and a former iron foundry on Pelsall North Common.

The scheme was well signposted at the time, but sadly like so many walking routes, it seems to have been largely forgotten by the people that unveiled it.

Following an enquiry on twitter by @Essitam, co-proprietor of the excellent WV11 local blog for Wednesfield, a number of folk in Walsall searched both online and offline for a guide to this elusive local trail to no avail.

Thanks are due to the lovely Morgan Bowers at Walsall Council, who located an archive copy of the original 2003 trail guide leaflet, now long out of print. Morgan  has scanned it into .PDF form so that anyone interested can download and print a copy for themselves.

Morgan, one of Walsall Councils wildlife ranger team, is the human dynamo behind the excellent @walsallwildlife twitter account, and has done fantastic work promoting our local wildlife across a whole range of social media. I salute and thank her for taking the time and effort to help us solve this unusual quest.

The introductory page. Click on the image to download the full version in PDF form.