Looks familiar… one of the great quality photos supplied by Hilary Little.
Well, thanks to the generosity and kind spirit of the wonderful Hilary Little, a new project starts here on the Brownhills Blog; the photographic recording and transcription of the 1871 Walsall Wood Inclosure Award. This involves over a gigabyte of material, and a large number of images and related documents.
This is an absolute feast for map fans and local historians alike, and will give ready access to one of the most important documents in the history of Walsall Wood to those who may be interested.
Hilary has contributed so much to matters arising about Walsall Wood and Bullings Heath – from the Royal Oak, to Pepper Alley, and even the Working Men’s Club there.
This has involved a huge amount of work for Hilary – for which I’m very, very grateful – and by me too, while I corral all this media into a series of galleries, pages and articles.
Rarely have I been so excited to present a piece of work here.
I hope you’ll all join with me in expressing our collective gratitude for the Hilary’s painstaking, thorough and selfless work. This is a remarkable thing.
The first gallery of images – 109 in total – is now available as a page (look at the black bar beneath the masthead above – next to the quizzes and diary) or you can access it by clicking here.
Over the coming weeks I will elaborate, and flesh out the gallery with articles that build upon it, but this seems like the best starting point.
Hilary said:
Hi Bob
You’re doing a marvellous job, reaching so many people – the naming of Bullings Heath Grove stands testament to that.
I don’t know whether this helps with any research your doing at the moment but I have just prepared over a gigabyte of photos from the Walsall Wood Inclosure award document, with just about everything in it photographed including the map detailing the awards, new roads etc.
The map itself is over 7ft long. It both explains a lot of as yet unanswered questions and raises a few more.
With grateful thanks
Hilary
So, fill your boots, have a think and a browse, and standby for more. This is going to take a long time to complete, so please be patient – but please, andy comments, questions or observations are welcome, either here or to BrownhillsBob at Googlemail dot com. Cheers.
Some of the pictures… you have to think about. This is remarkable.