Top amateur historian Julian Ward-Davies has dropped me a line to point out that his latest work, entitled ‘The Lost Lanes of Stonnall’ is now online. Julian, as regular readers will recall, is the hugely talented, dedicated author, geek and landscape history whizz behind those excellent works ‘The Lost Lake of Stonnall’ and ‘The Stonnall Mysteries’ – both of which were enthusiastically devoured by readers of The Brownhills Blog. Having spent the day perusing the work, I can safely say it’s Julian’s best yet.

In this paper, Julian explores the lost lanes, track and footpaths of the Stonnall area, their names, uses and histories. For anyone who explored the area as a kid, like I did, this is  a fascinating and thoroughly readable piece of research. Gradually, Julian is building up a large and engaging body of work, without which, local history would be the poorer.

I thank the author for this wonderful addition to the history of a fascinating area.

Introduction

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.

At the western side of the valley, there is the particularly high ground of Castle Hill and Lazy Hill. At the eastern side of the valley, there is the high ground of Grove Hill and Church Hill.

The village is associated with the neighbourhoods of Thornes and Lynn.

Read more at The Lost Lanes of Stonnall