Lockdown Log: ALDERSLEY

You know the drill by now: keeping things local but still squeezing out some pandemic-era photography whilst getting to know Wolverhampton a little better in the process. Whitsun Week saw me enjoying a break from work which I put to good use with another of my doorstep walks...

- Tettenhall Transport Heritage Centre -
The Smestow Valley/South Staffordshire Railway Walk has been a lynchpin of my lockdown explorations and it comes to the fore again as I follow the old line towards Aldersley. Along the way I pass Compton Halt and Tettenhall's former railway station, latterly used as the 'Cupcake Lane' tearooms. As is custom whenever I'm in the area, the GWR Goods Shed attracts a flurry of pictures with its painted lettering particularly prominent.

- Hordern Road Bridge -
Beyond Tettenhall, the disused railway passes the railings of St Michael's School and then the Hills Coaches depot before reaching Hordern Road Bridge, the metalwork of which is riveted in regimental patterns. The line then continues up to Aldersley Stadium where the leisure centre facility has been repurposed as Wolverhampton Council's central hub for emergency food parcel deliveries. Anybody wishing to enter the site is having their temperature checked by security, yet another reminder of the strange times we're currently living in.

- End of the Trail -
The Covid patrol team permit me to proceed with my transport heritage brief as the trail passes beneath an overgrown bridge near a basketball court. The path then gets ever narrower before ultimately terminating just short of an Oxley Sidings buffer stop - this is the spot where the Wombourne Branch historically joined the Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury main line. From here I can shimmy down the side of a viaduct to briefly join the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, pausing to account for Aldersley Junction on the outer fringes of the Birmingham Canal Navigations.

- Blakeley Green Allotments -
The second half of my stroll involves a residential rummage around Blakeley Green, Claregate and Aldersley, seeking out streets that had hitherto eluded me. The Pilot pub on Green Lane certainly has photo previous but I'd never knowingly investigated Macrome Road, setting for some industrial units (Fern Plastics, Rothley Hardware Components etc) and the incongruous entrance to Blakeley Green Allotments - I didn't know they existed! Pendeford Avenue is home to a sequence of shops including a Co-op store, Roma Wines and a Compton Care charity outlet.

- Claregate Primary School -
After gazing wistfully at Hail to the Ale - one of my nominations in Britain Beermat's recent poll to name the Midlands best micropub - I dart along Blackburn Avenue in order to find Claregate Primary School, tucked away at the end of the Chester Avenue cul-de-sac. A snap or two of the eerily quiet school gates precedes a Derby Avenue/Crossland Crescent combination for a real slice of suburbia. 


- King Edward VIII Postbox -

Emerging from Lynton Avenue onto Aldersley Road, I'm keen to track down a somewhat unheralded Wolverhampton curiosity. The LifeStyle Express store on the corner with Burland Avenue isn't in itself especially interesting, but it does have outside a rare Edward VIII pillar box - said to be one of only 161 erected during the Duke of Windsor's brief reign prior to his 1936 abdication. With that duly documented, I rejoin the railway walk at Tettenhall and head homewards - cheers!