Across the rooftops
This remarkable panorama was created by reader and friend of the blog Steve Wilcox, who painstakingly constructed it from multiple images shot from a tower block in Leamore, near Bloxwich.
Walsall planning appeal shock!
Readers may well recall the excellent article about the regeneration of the Reedswood power station site, written by top contributor and Brownhills bloke Andy Dennis. In it, Andy pointed out that further development of the site outside the council’s guidelines was, at the time, subject to appeal by the developers Parkhill Estates Limited, a name…
Arthur Burton MM – military records now online
Just a quick note of thanks and appreciation to top local historian and decent bloke Roger ‘Ziksby’ Jones, who has taken the time to post Arthur Burton’s military records on Flickr so all concerned can inspect them. Roger obtained them via Ancestry.com whose original source was the National Archives. This would have taken no small…
When the lights go out
Recently, there has been some debate locally about reclamation of former industrial sites, and the role of developers and local government. In all the cant and bluster, it’s often lost that most of these projects are hugely successful and take an awful lot of work. Andy Dennis, reader and long time contributor to the Brownhills…
The cream of society
I’ve mentioned ice cream vans and milk floats on the blog before. I’m quite interested in that lost delivery and van sales thing – chip vans, mobile shops, bakers vans – but there seems to be precious little local material about. I’m inviting contributions from anyone who has anything to please get in touch, as…
Walsall1955 and all that
I must say, it’s rare that one finds such an embarrassment of historical riches as the Flickr photo streams of bus enthusiasts. These dedicated folk, with a deep fascination for all things omnibus have a unique feature that makes their work interesting to those of us who may not be quite as into the old…
Further abroad
Since there was such a great reaction to last week’s post containing photos from the Flickr stream of walsall_pete, I thought I’d continue the Walsall theme this week with a few pictures from a similar, but slightly later period by a pair of great photographers: Peter Barker, photographer, designer and good friend to the Brownhills…
Light flight
As regulars will know, I have lately posted articles featuring the stunning work of Aldridge amateur photographer Barry Carpenter, whose work frequently leaves me speechless. Barry is a very talented, creative chap, and one of the tools in his photographic armoury is Kite Aerial Photography, or KAP for short. I recently asked Barry to write…
I live where it’s grey
I hope readers will forgive me this week for featuring foreign parts in the ‘Pictures from the past’ feature. Whilst mooching around Flickr a couple of weeks ago, I came upon an absolutely stunning set of early eighties photo scans by photographer mervyn_w, that evoke a particularly formative time in my life. I, like many…
From the ‘You heard it here first’ department
Thanks to several people who alerted me on Twatter and Facebook, I note that the Walsall Express & Star yet again finds itself churning the Brownhills Blog for stories. First featured here after a discussion on twatter, the article about the preserved bar from The Warreners Arms in Brownhills was published on 4th February, 2011…
Bar none
Bar HDR, originally uploaded by Josh_Paul_Williams. In the spirit of the recent theme of preserved historic bits of Brownhills wood, top Bloxwich student, photographer and computer geek Joshua Williams recently mentioned on twitter that his grandfather had part of the former bar from the lost pub ‘The Warreners Arms’ preserved in his living room….
The importance of local knowledge
I notice the good folks at the Express & Star still seem to be having trouble with accuracy on their local patch. This puff piece, pointlessly punted for Walsall Council’s Arboretum revamp project would be fine if the hapless hack who compiled it knew anything about the park he was covering. That isn’t the Arboretum…