A Cross City Catch-Up

The Cross City line was a vital exploration artery for me during my very early adventures around Birmingham, and I well remember the fascination of venturing out from University station for a ride in between lectures and seminars (although it has to be said that some studying was also done too). Fast forward to Friday 14th September 2012, and with ten years of digital photography now under my belt, the line would once again provide the foundations for an outing that mixed personal nostalgia with new discoveries...

ASTON: and how's this for a fitting place to start? As I mentioned the other day, Aston Station was one of my very first photo locations back in 2002, and here it is a decade later still offering me up some camera targets. It's handy being able to catch a train direct from Wolverhampton, albeit only as a long-winded consolation for the loss of the Walsall-Wolverhampton shuttle service, but at least it makes for a neat connection onto the Cross City, which then takes me north through Spaghetti Junction and on beyond Erdington and Sutton Coldfield.

BUTLERS LANE: I alight at Butlers Lane, actually one of my lesser-visited stations that I can only really recall touching base with once before (with Rog in 2005). Not a lot has changed apart from little hints of London Midland corporate signage, otherwise the ramps, shelters, ticket office and wooden fences are all pretty much as I remember. 

- Station Sign at Butlers Lane -

MERE GREEN: it isn't all train travel today so let the walking begin, starting with a wander into Mere Green. Butlers Lane (the road rather than the station) has the prospect of pub shots of both the Butlers Arms and the White Lion, then I take Hill Village Road down to the local centre. The pub/restaurant overlooking the main Lichfield Road roundabout is now called Romantica, and I was saddened to see a whole segment of shopping parade still all shuttered up whilst the site remains in redevelopment limbo.

- What next for these former shops? -

LITTLE SUTTON: into the local estates next as I follow the trail of the 905 bus route along Sherifoot Lane and Gibbons Road. The Pint Pot was a useful pub find on Tower Road, whilst on Grange Road I can photograph the post office opposite the Four Oaks Baptist Church - I'm sure Rog and I passed through here on the way to Roughley once. Little Sutton Road splits away and becomes quietly residential, leading down to Weeford Road where farms and fields suggest you are nearing the edge of the West Midlands county boundary.

WHITEHOUSE COMMON: here's a part of Sutton Coldfield that I don't remember happening across before. Landmarks include the White Horse (a Flaming Grill pub) and a Nisa store post office on the corner of Barnard Road. Venturing deeper into the estate brings me out by the Good Hope Hospital and I'm pleased to get a photo of the Boot Inn, a cottagey-looking pub on Rectory Road.

 

- The White Horse -

RECTORY PARK: a path down the side of the Boot leads me into Rectory Park, a large area of open sapce that feels quite rugged in places. Playing fields are dotted in amongst wilder common, and there seems to be a football ground in one corner judging by the perimeter rails and the home and away dugout shelters. Another track takes me down to a tree-lined avenue by a car park, the path flanked by what look like sculptural table-tennis tables. The park provides a welcome place to pause for some lunch, hoping that the gathering grey clouds aren't suddenly about to empty their contents on me.

 

- Rectory Park Football Ground -

FALCON LODGE: any rain thankfully holds off as I negotiate Reddicap Heath (complete with the Reddicap Tavern behind a yellow privet hedge) and make my way into Falcon Lodge. Here we have a self-contained estate that has served as a bus terminus for many years. The shops on Churchill Road make for a distinctive long parade of stores, whilst other features include the pointy Methodist Church and a youth centre. The 904 route is the current service to lay over here but its the 115 I catch today, enjoying a proper bash down through Walmley and along Penns Lane.

 

- Churchill Road -

WYLDE GREEN: my plan had been to stay on the 115 through to Aston Station but that swiftly got abandoned when it dawned on me that I was entering Wylde Green, an area that conjures up precious memories of my earliest bus adventures, outings completed long before I had any thoughts about digital cameras. Somehow the Yenton pub and the Birmingham Road shops had planted themselves in my brain for all these years and yet I'd never remotely got anywhere near taking pictures of them. This black hole in my archive simply had to be filled, with the afore-mentioned features accompanied by the discovery of the library and community hall building on Emscote Drive - seminal moments indeed!

 

- The Yenton -

CHESTER ROAD: all of this giddy excitement had to end somewhere, and Chester Road Station happened to be close at hand to tie a big bow around my Cross City contemplations. As stations go this isn't a personal favourite, even though the signs on Chester Road bridge make for a nice photo opportunity. There isn't a huge amount of character to admire with the modern platform structures being functional and largely inoffensive.

- Chester Road Bridge Sign -

The ride home after a hugely enjoyable outing is always a bittersweet experience, where the contentment and satisfaction of a job well done mixes with a tinge of sadness that another adventure has ended. Those self-same emotions are here again today as I stand on the platforms at Chester Road then Aston awaiting my final connections back. This was an outing where my exploration past and my exploration present came together as one, as if the spotty-faced student of ten years ago was right there with me, and it was comforting to think that the same excitement and enthusiasm that fuelled me then still drives me now. The Cross City line has been a staunch backdrop to so many adventures, and today's experiences suggest there are still plenty more places the line can open up for me in future...

Cricket... and carrot!

Two busy weeks of exploration have seen Warwickshire hunting titles as the cricket season reaches its crescendo, not to mention the small matter of the Tamworth Beer Festival...

WORCESTER: The Bears are in the running for the County Championship crown as Nick, I and the two Mr Beardsmores descend upon New Road. Having bowled Worcestershire out for only 60 in their first innings, things are looking good as the second day of the match is spent accumulating runs and getting into a strong position. The St John's area of town offers a couple of nice local pubs (the Bell and the Berkeley Arms) although the biggest treat of the day is reserved for tea and cake from the Ladies Pavilion.

- Awaiting the presentation by the Graham Hick Pavilion -

Going into the third day of the match, Warwickshire needed to take a further eight Worcestershire wickets in order to secure the club's seventh Championship title. Stephen and I were determined to witness cricketing history being made, and were duly rewarded just after lunch when Chris Wright clean bowled Alan Richardson to complete a resounding victory. It has been a remarkable effort from the Bears squad over the last few months and they have undoubtedly proved themselves the best side in the country - congratulations!

- A Victory Drink in the Eagle Vaults -

TAMWORTH: The glow of that title glory was still with us as Nick and I made our way to the Assembly Rooms, Tamworth for the town's 19th beer festival on Friday 7th September. Despite us going early, the venue was already crammed full although everyone was having a great time sampling some interesting and unusual ales. The Church End and Tunnel Breweries had particularly indulged in some flavour experimentation with Coffee & Walnut Cake and Cherry on the menu, although nothing quite prepared me for the Rusty Mo-ta carrot beer which came with a free specimen of the said root vegetable - I think the carrot tasted nicer than the actual drink. The theme for the festival was the Olympigs (a cross between the Olympics and Tamworth pigs) so we had to try the Olympig Snout, my favourite out of the tipples tasted. Whilst in the area, we also tried out some of the local pubs with the Globe and the Robert Peel particularly standing out.

- Yes, that really is a carrot in my beer -

NOTTINGHAM: the final round of County Championship fixtures sees the Bears facing Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge, a ground that is my favourite of the larger Test arenas I've visited thus far. The match was evenly poised after the first day (Notts 155 all out, Warks 139/6) but the second day was largely notable for persistent showers, taking cover in the Trent Bridge Inn Wetherspoons and Nick's flaskful of fennel tea. I did enjoy a lunchtime walk around Nottingham with my sister, sampling lunch in the Bell Inn, a historic pub that claims to be Nottingham's oldest. We had better luck with the weather on Thursday, but spent the whole day watching Notts racking up the runs as the game and the season eventually ended in a solid draw.

- The view from Trent Bridge -

The cricketing season may now be over, but it has certainly been memorable with visits to Derby, Hove and Taunton leading up to that title-clinching moment in Worcester - absolutely brilliant. I look forward to following the Bears again next year as they try to defend their crown, and in the meantime I'm sure there will be plenty to keep me occupied over the winter months...

Ten Years On...

Little did I know it at the time, but Tuesday 10th September 2002 would change my life, for that was the day when I took my first ever digital photograph. Just out of curiosity, I borrowed my Dad’s camera and took it to university with me to try out a few shots of the railway station. Photos of Bilston, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall and Wolverhampton followed over the next couple of days, and already I was hooked...

- University Station: The day it all began -

Those fledgling early photos look really primitive now. I hadn’t got any kind of eye for composition (some people would say I still haven’t), and the camera had 1.8 megapixels, a world away from the clarity and detail that today’s models offer. Nonetheless, something about recording a moment in time really appealed to me, capturing a memory of a location, an adventure – and it’s that same thrill that still entices me out and about a decade later.

I like the challenge of exploring places, getting into the local detail of knowing where things are, what they look like and how to get there. My initial focus on buses and trains has shifted over the years, and now its amenities that I probably focus on more than anything else – libraries, parks, and of course pubs. I became aware quite quickly that some of my photos, however imperfect they might be, could just have some kind of local significance if a scene changed. I remember taking a photo of the Richmond pub in Stechford in 2003 only to find when I returned that the site was now a health centre; there have been countless other examples of landmarks being consigned to history.

Looking back over ten years of photography, it has been fascinating to see how places have changed and developed, how fortunes have fluctuated. I didn’t know the West Midlands that well when those first photos were taken, and there are plenty of corners now that are still managing to escape my attention. Every outing has been a voyage of discovery in one way or another, and I feel that I have been enriched by all of the places and experiences that have come my way. From 2005 the photographs became the foundation of my online galleries, firstly at Fotopic and latterly on Flickr, whilst since 2006 my various escapades have been regaled here on the WME Blogspot.

What has changed in those ten years? Many things have, and many haven’t. Some places are barely recognisable from what they were – think of Rover at Longbridge for example. The transport network doesn’t seem any better off, with the Midland Metro still limited to one solitary line (albeit with a Birmingham City Centre extension to come) whilst the railway system has largely stood still where opportunities for local expansion remain on the drawing board. Bus stations have been rebuilt from rows of simple shelters into state-of-the-art showpieces, albeit becoming photographic no-go zones in the process. The bus routes themselves seem to have been curtailed and reviewed in an ongoing fashion, whilst the current fleet somehow doesn’t seem as characterful compared to my early trips on Metrobuses, Lynxes and breadvans. That’s nostalgia for you I guess, the rosy-coloured tint of the past.

The world can seem a more hostile place to the amateur photographer these days. I’ve had my fair share of paranoid drivers, suspicious landlords and officious jobsworths to contend with, but it should also be said these have been more than outweighed by some wonderful reactions where local people have stopped to chat, tell me a bit of history and even suggest other things I might like to get pictures of. Sometimes my favourite discoveries turn out to be happy little accidents that I find out about in precisely this manner. I will pause now to thank all of the people who have been involved in ten years worth of adventures, especially Stuart, Dad, Roger, Woody, D9 Andy, Stephen and Nick who have all had to show admirable patience whilst I chase after my next picture fix, or show restraint when the lens has been focused on them!

Ten years and several thousand photos have flown by so quickly, but I know I definitely wouldn't be without my camera now. Here's to the next ten!

Double Duds with Mr D9

Friday 31st August took me from Duddeston to Dudley, aided and abetted by Mr D9 Esq and a selection of canals, hills (far too many hills!) and public houses...

- Birmingham & Fazeley Canal: the day begins in style with a walk from 

Snow Hill to Aston Junction, where I'm delighted to find Aston Top Lock 

complete with old humpback bridge -

- Digbeth Branch: it's then on towards Digbeth, tackling Ashted Tunnel 

(crusty cobwebs) and more locks, leading down through Eastside 

where the Moby Dick remains marooned amongst cleared land -

- Duddeston: a good old bit of ferreting takes me down Erskine Street 

where the Midland Tavern is a sorry sight, a burnt-out shell of a 

Banks's boozer with most of its roof missing -

- Spon Lane Branch: Switching to Sandwell & Dudley, I join the 

Spon Lane Branch at Bromford. Three locks here keep me occupied, 

the uppermost of which is buried in the bowels of the M5 motorway -

- Oakham: Mr D9 joins the action intent on half-killing himself with some

 hill based hiking. He almost needed oxygen to cope with Bury Hill Park, 

and then the Oakham estate seems to be located on a mountain range. 

Here the balding one negotiates the undulating terrain of a reclaimed quarry site -

- Razor Phone: whether the Wheatsheaf and Dolls House had sent him 

doolally or not is debatable, but Andy was inspired by the Lion Farm youths

to try shaving off his sideburns with his mobile phone -

- Rowley: the Wolves wallet stays well hidden in the Bull's Head 

(previously the Chaplin) when we accidentally find ourselves amongst 

a throng of Albion fans attending a wake; I did still get the round mind! 

The Cock Inn provides an escape from a bar full of Baggies -

- Closet Capers: Into Dudley where Mr D9 feels at home by the gents closet, 

albeit he is having to cope with a severe belt malfunction. The Shakespeare pub 

was a real gem here, complete with Theakston's Tarmac, pigeon fanciers 

and an outside loo for a real Black Country experience -

- A few halves around Dudley Town complete proceedings, with the

Little Barrel proving narrow and the Griffin having a bizarre mix of Mr Blobby, 

Wombles and heavy metal on the jukebox, nothing to do with us I might add. 

We round it all off in the Old Priory, Cheers ! -