Here’s another ride video of Walsall Wood and Brownhills for the expats, exiles and vicarious cyclists, but especially Trevor in Australia. Hope all is going well, old chap, and that the treatment isn’t knocking you about too much. We’re all thinking of you.
I enjoy making these immensely, but have no idea why they’re popular. As long as you folks keep liking them, I’ll keep making them. If there’s anywhere you’d particularly like me to go – on or off road, providing there’s a track, no problem. Just ask…
I’m aware I have an outstanding order from Mr. Porktorta in San Antonio. I’m waiting for the right conditions. I have a cunning plan. Sit tight.
This is a journey from Kingshayes Farm on Northgate/Salters Road, down Vigo Road, King Street, Beechtree Road, and to Brook Lane, around the rear of what used to be United Carriers, but is now a housing estate.
From there, along the Lichfield Road, cut through the site of the old Walsall Wood Station, down the length of Coppice Road, onto Lindon Road past the derelict Wheel Inn, over Anchor Bridge, skimming around Laburnum Cottage and up New Road, Around St. James Church, past the cemeteries and St James School (formerly Ogley Hay). Up great Charles Street to Co-op Corner on the Ogley Road, and then down to Morris Miner, past Garden City via the Lichfield Road.
For Mr. Flodders, who’s interested in such things, it’s smack on 4 miles and took me just over 20 minutes. I say, that Makers van wasn’t taking any prisoners, was he?
The speeded up sections are at about 2.5x normal speed. The rest is real time. The soundtrack is ‘Homage to Patagonia’ by the sublime Lemon Jelly. This isn’t the first time I’ve used their music on soundtracks, and won’t be the last, I’m sure.
My route, as drawn on Google Earth. I started at the bottom, and cycled north. Click for a larger version.
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another brill vid bob i just love to know that someone enjoys theses local rides as much as me lol keep it up as we know you will ………………….
HI Bob
a super cycle ride..again..Enjoyed every moment !
Many thanks for your kindness on doing these videos and for spending the time to glue them on to the blog, if that’s the phrase
cheers
David
I enjoy your cycle rides too, not having lived in Brownhills for the last 30 years and the last time I visited was over 10 years ago it brings back happy memories. I have lived in Wiltshire for longer than I spent in Brownhills but I still feel like I don’t belong, and at times I have a hankering to return “home”. Maybe one day I will get back for a visit. I’m obviously getting nostalgic in my old age.lol..
Brilliant little ride! Can’t get enough of these – funny how a quick trip around the Wood up to Co-Op Corner can stave away the homesick blues. I won’t be home again until Christmas next year, so I’m loving the fact that I can keep these handy and be back home, even if just for a few minutes. Thanks Bob 🙂
Hi Bob, Thanks for your wonderful work making and editing these Video’s for us,
I have to get my bearings first then I’m away with you, I like the way that the towns have been greened up along the cut and around Brookland Rd, High St, Vigo etc it looks great now, I do envy you the the Greenness everywhere but not as winter creeps upon you all,
You certainly take my mind off other things going on in my life and the world is a better place for you being on it Bob, I am feeling much better than I was thanks for asking Bob and David
…….”care for a ride”? I nodded, eagerly, and crossed the road to Kingshayes
Farm, which I knew when it really was a farm, Wilkins’s where most of the locals bought their daily milk.
i heaved my 81 years old legs over the crossbar, which was the traditional way
of travelling for us bikeless ones in the ‘thirties and we set off. With a minute we were at the Vigo corner and I caught a glimpse of Salters Road, before turning
left into Vigo road. Heavens ! where are the old houses, old in the thirties where all my mates lived, and Vigo Road ? Old houses, six Council houses and a
plentiful supply of common was all that I could remember. No Rabbit bridge over the railway ? I don’t remember the incline, then right into King street, past
King Street Club, tiny, as I remember it but seems as if its spread itself several adjacent properties. Very smart looking, nowadays. Then into Beechtree Road,
where I looked for Doctor Roberts black and white dog who always had a muzzle on to prevent him consuming any old rubbish when on the loose.
Then into Brook Lane. Couldn’t see the brook, where we used to sail our
homemade boats, glorying in the strong current and into the top end of Brook
Lane where Collins’s garage reigned supreme on the left-hand side. On the opposite side of the unmade muddy road were a couple of cottages, nothing more. Directly opposite to lane, across the Lichfield Road was the familiar facade of the Methodist Schoolroom, later to become the main church.
Turn left here, down the road a little and…where were we? We had crossed
the road and had entered an enchanted place with little paths and tidy grassed
areas. It was only when entering Coppice Road that I got my bearings. Up to then I had sought for a familiar old house or cottage to set me right. The old
railway station, minus the bridge, cutting, and everything else, just grass and paths! I pondered a little on the old station, old as I was I could not remember a passenger service, I do remember, however the coal trucks driven by steam quite well. I also remember the passenger service which terminated at Walsall, sending parcels to Walsall Wood Station via lorry, a peculiar three-wheel vehicle with attatched bogey, called the “iron horse” by old-timers in the vijllage,
in the familiar livery of the LMS Railway. They were then delivered by the railway in much the same way as the post office. It was possible to order one hundred day-old chicks from hatcheries as far away as Yorkshire and have them delivered, the same day, alive and well, in Walsall Wood. Nearly eighty years later, such is progress, under courier service, one has to enter an online
number to find where an article is “resting” overnight, before delivery.
And so onto the Lindon Road and the “Wheel Inn”. A grimy down-at -heel
pub, as I remember it, never remember it being “spruced-up” in my memory.
Never has much going for it, being a stones throw from The Coppy pit, and about six feet from a busy road. My old Aunt Emma, in her nineties, found something attractive in the old pub.however, and would hobble down from New Street to sample her favourite tipple.
Up to the Anchor Bridge next, turn left, and and as we passed the Warreners
Arms, I remembered the titanic battles fought between Ogley Hay and Walsall Wood on the adjacent football ground. A victory for Ogley would completely ruin my weekend, and it was often the following Wednesday before I discovered life could still be worth living.
Greater parts of Brownhills lay undiscovered before me, but I do remember the likeness in the Council houses built in the 1930’s on the estates being so much like the Council houses in Walsall Wood – bay windows, flat windows, all one design, that they were like familiar friends.
I remember the Church and the railed paths. I attended the church quite often at one time, being quite taken with a churchgoing young lady. I also remember the old “memmo” the Momorial Hall and the Saturday night dance,
Nearly there, Bob, and a million thanks for the ride, think I’ll get a cake
from Brewe’s cake shop before legging it back to the Wood.
.
Hi Bob and all my friends at the Blog,
I started school at age five, I lived at the bottom of Castle Rd Vigo, My Mom walked me to school at Streets Corner on the first day and never set foot in the school again,
My Grand-kids think my Mom didn’t care for me letting me walk on my own all that way, playing in the brook on common on the way home, I think my Mom was so good to teach me self preservation and responsibility from that early age that has served well for me all my life,
Do other Blogers here think that we were taught how to live and how to live and learn from the non fatal mistakes that we must have made, I know times are different now but there must have been risks that we learnt to deal with ourselves, Thank God that we old fellows have lived through the greatest time in Earths history,
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