Haden Hill Park in Cradley Heath

There’s been some great additions to the park recently the kids all love the new adventure wooded playground area thingy – and the other playground. I also noticed a new bandstand area by Haden Hall and a new sign outside Haden Hill House that says “Haden Hill House Museum” – I used to work at the house at weekends and love looking around but sadly I didn’t get chance on this visit and I’m still waiting to have a proper look aroud the Old Hall – I must put it in my diary the next time it’s open.

Serpent benches at Haden Hill Park

Some of our activities on this sunny Saturday included:

• dragon spotting (I love these benches – got to get me one for my back garden)
• finding the witches hut (well the remains of what we (as kids) used to call “the witches hut” down by the lower pond,
• squirrel spotting
• watching the ducks – I said “watching” not” feeding” as you’re not supposed to feed them these days – well not with bread anyway – apparently it’s bad for them – so it’s a bread free diet for the ducks from now on
• playing frisbee and football on “the green”
• visiting the pet cemetary – where The Hadens buried their pets – Nip and Fluf are names that ring a bell but I can’t remember if they’re the real names or ones from a kids book
• Having an ice cream ..mmmmm!

I think what I like best about the park is that – although there’s been a few changes over recent years – it’s still the same park I visited as a child with mom and dad and taking my lad adds new memories that I hope he’ll remember when he’s older and takes his kids there too.

Sandwell Council’s webpage of Haden Hill Park includes a cool link to photos added to Flcikr that have been tagged with “haden hill park” so if you’ve been out and about – snapping away add your to the group and they’ll appear on the site.

Click on a thumbnail image above to enlarge.

Here’s the link to the set on Flickr – and also you can view a more detailed set of great images of the buildings.

The Sandwell Council website has a list of the listed buildings in Rowley Regis and descriptions of each.

And here’s Mark’s Flickr map showing the locations with links to photos. So if you’re wondering what to do on a day out – how about sight seeing in Rowley Regis and finding out more about the heritage of the area.

I think that Mark has done a brilliant job, a fantastic idea, thanks for sharing.

Mark (aka Sparks68) has a wonderful selection of photos on Flickr – including sets for other listed buildings across Sandwell.

You can’t miss the new building with it’s big turret on top – it’s certainly a big presence in the town.

Inside Blackheath Library - look they have books too!

I’ve not been yet, but my lad went earlier with my mom and his cousins and he was so excited he couldn’t wait to tell me all about – the best bit (according to a six year old) is that you scan your books yourself in self serve till-like thing (a bit like the self-service checkouts at supermarkets I guess). That  – and he’s now got a library card – his first bit of plastic!

I remember going as a kid to the library (when it was in Carnegie Road) – making the short walk from Blackheath Infant/Junior school in Powke Lane – we had to hold hands, and sometimes I had a hold hands with a girl – eurgh!! Every week I used to get the maximum number of books I could and then take them back the next week for replacements having read none of them. I don’t remember being as excited as Harry but we never had self serve machines but there were nice ladies who smiled and stamped the books as we put them on the counter – strecthing up to reach.

The old Blackheath Library  closed a few weeks before and is now up for sale by Sandwell Council. The old building was donated to the town for use as a library by Andrew Carnegie, it’s not a listed building but hopefully it will stay with us and a new use can be found by the buyer, it’s over 100 years old and I reckon it adds a bit of heritage to Blackheath – I wonder why it’s not listed?

Anyway for those who want to hear a six year old talk about a new library down the road – here you go:

Cobb's Engine House at Warrens Hall

One Sunny Day in April

Take one delightfully sunny day in April – a big bonus as it was a Sunday and no work – always a joy to not work on a sunny day – me and a few select members of the Johnson crew went on a little walk to Warrens Hall via the canals (well the canal towpaths to be exact… felt I had to add that for health and safety reasons, wouldn’t want anyone to actually walk in the canal).

Powke Lane Public Open Space

We started off from Powke Lane Public Open Space (in Powke Lane, Rowley Regis) and walked along the canal path to Springfield and Warrens Hall Local Nature Reserve.

The Open Space in Powke Lane can easily be missed, my sister-in-law who had lived in the area for over 10 years had never heard of it let alone seen it. There’s plenty of green there stuck between industrial estate and over the road from the cemetry – a right little secret haven in Rowley Regis.

From there we walked to Totnal Bridge and took a right along the canal path of the Dudley No. 2 canal to Warren’s Hall – it’s about 2 miles according to the mapping website I used to clock the distance and record the route.

Canal barge going under Garratt's Lane Bridge on the Dudley No. 2 canal

Along the way we saw a few ducks and geese – and fed them some bread, met some friendly canal folk (they didn’t want any bread) and had a few pit stops for the old and young of the expedition party to refuel.

Once there it’s amazing what you find at Warrens Hall – another little hidden gem right on our doorstep – especially on a sunny day; canals, bridges, wildlife, pools, a big tunnel and – Cobb’s Engine House (see main photo above). We sat and had a picnic on the grass by the Engine House and Chimney – well, I say picnic – it was Fruitshoots, Hula Hoops and Haribos – what more do you need eh?… (sorry Jamie Oliver!).

Here’s a little bit of info about Cobb’s Engine House courtesy of Wikipedia:

Cobb’s Engine House (properly known as Windmill End Pumping Station) in Rowley Regis, West Midlands, England, is a scheduled ancient monument and a Grade II listed building built around 1831. It housed a stationary steam pump used to pump water firstly from Windmill End Colliery and later other mines in the area. Utilizing a shaft 525 feet deep, 1,600,000 litres of water were pumped from the mines into the canal daily. It ceased work in 1928 and the Newcomen type engine was moved to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan in 1930.

I remember going to Warren’s Hall as a kid – as a pupil at Britannia High School with Jock Weir for one of his Outdoor Ed lessons, I used to love Outdoor Ed – probably my favourite subject at school and Jock was a pretty cool teacher too. We’d done abseiling and other cool stuff with ropes there – not sure if we abseiled down that big chimney or not but we did abseil something there – it was few years back and mind’s gone a blank.

Warrens Hall - right on your step

Also me and few mates had been through the Netherton Tunnel as kids; on foot and on bikes – walking was the scariest and it was usually a “dare” for one of us to go first – sometimes the handrail wasn’t there, one wrong move and we’d be in the cut – all cold, dark and wet . If I remember correctly the tunnel is 9,081 feet long (that’s 2,768 metres to you metric dudes) – actually I don’t remember at all – I cheated (but I guess you knew that) – good old Wikepedia again!

I was a bit confused which local authority was responsible for Warren’s Hall but found a sign saying it’s Sandwell Council – and later found a website link with more info. It’s confusing because there’s also information on the Dudley Council website. Dudley have this to say about Bumble Hole and Warrens Hall Local Nature Reserves:

All of this quiet greenery was once covered with industrial action, a hub of horses and workers. Factories, boat yards, coal mines, blast furnaces, iron works, timber yards, brick kilns and saw mills occupied the open spaces. There are many hidden clues and visible signs in Cobbs engine house, Timbers Gallows Crane and the Blow Cold Bank Colliery Spoil Heap. The canal basin once served for continual boat traffic ferrying coal from the pits.

So – if you’re looking for a nice little walk (it’s over 4 miles if you walk back so will leave it up to you to decide if it is “little”) with nice scenery and a bit of history do what we did (map link somewhere above) and let us all know what you think, if you’ve got photos share them via Flickr, you can view some of the other photos from our walk on Flickr if you want.

The Inbetweeners at Bell End

The lads from E4′s The Inbetweeners have recently been to Rowley Regis – really putting us well and truly on the map for… wait for it..rude road signs.

Yes – we are now Rowley Rudegis.

The actors Simon Bird (Will), Joe Thomas (Simon), James Buckley (Jay) and Blake Harrison (Neil) have been on a Rude Road Trip visiting 50 of the rudest places in the country in 50 hours all to raise money for Comic Relief.

Here’s photos of the lads in 3 places that you might recognise in Rude Rowley – Bell End, The Cock Inn and  Hawes Lane.

You can find out more about the trip on The Inbetweeners Facebook page and donate to Comic Relief here.

I hope they didn’t shout any obscenties at passengers on the 140 bus to Dudley – the little rudies them (as my mom would say)!

I’ve knocked up a quick Google Map to show the locations of the rudest places in Rowley Regis (and the country) which you should be able to see below.

View Rude Rowley in a larger map

Have you seen Kieron?

Can you help find missing 16-year-old lad Kieron Stott from Highams Close, Rowley Regis, who was last seen on 4 January 2011? Kieron is described as 6ft 2ins tall, slim build, with short brown hair, clean shaven. He may be wearing a red Adidas hooded top. 

More information and photos of Kieron.. 

• Facebook link: Help Find Kieron Stott
• Help find my child link: Kieron Stott

If you have any information please call Sandwell Police on 0345 113 5000. 

Map centre on Rowley Village

To show this I wanted to create a clever borderline-thingy (I’m sure there’s a more technical term for it) on Google Maps which combined each council wards which makes up Rowley Regis but it proved to difficult – so settled for an old fashioned way of drawing a circle on a map. Old fashioned – yes, but updated to make it a Google Map with links to other relevant information on Openly Local.

To create the circle I needed somewhere to as the centrepoint and after scanning Google Maps for a while came to the decision to use Rowley Village as the centre for a 2 mile radius. This probabl stretches it a bit too far but is good to use as a guide. Have a look at the About this site page and let me know what you think – feel free to add comments to the page or this post.

Rowley Regis on Facebook

Our favourite Facebook page is the “I love Rowley Regis” page (well, apart from When someone says “stop” my brain says “Hammertime!”). This is the one (the I love Rowley Regis page, not the Hammertime one) that you can see in the right-hand column of this website – which shows a random 4 mugshots of Rowley Regis lovers.

We’re quite excited that today 100 people “like this” – yes, we’re all quite sad really – but all happy to show our love for RR.

The “R.I.P. The Grammar” is the most successful of the RR pages on Facebook with over 1000 people saying they like it – not bad for just a piece of grass!

The page was set up for people to show how much they miss The Grammar since it was fenced off and closed to the public last year to build the new school on the site, quite a few people have shared their memories from football to sledging, snogging to spinning on the shiny metal spinny thingy – have a read and add your own.