Wolverhampton today.
The old and the new
Discarded but still here.
Water, reeds and waste.
Wulfrun Coal Yard
Natural reclamation
Cygnets
“What are you catching?”
“Not a lot!”
In the heart of the Black Country.
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Coseley Tunnel
Bridge cottages
Coseley ‘Oses’
Watery ramble.
Remnants of a great past.
Rural Tipton
To Stourbridge
Ducklings
Modes of travel.
Lovely photos Andy!And thanks too for your essay “A walk through (changing) time”.
Although I have lived in a upland rural area for decades with views of hills I do enjoy industrial landscapes too. As a very young child in the forties and early fifties I played in bomb craters and walked through a destroyed industrial landscape and wandered down to the river (Thames) at low tide. By the time I was six we had moved to the countryside but still an industrial landscape awaited! I refer to old gravel workings, the gantries we would climb as well as fish from the old gravel barges. What fun we had!
In summer, these industrial “wastelands†are often full of lovely wild flowers. There is this element of decay, and for me, almost a nostalgia for the time of my early childhood when a post war industrial landscape was an adventurous playground.
Even now, I too, look at industrial landscapes – on the way to Inverness I often drive by an old disused industrial area – the landscape within now full of flowering Rosebay Willowherb.
Now I enjoy lovely landscapes – the heather is in bloom and tomorrow I will park near Glenmore Lodge and with one of my dogs walk up Bynack Mor. The forecast is good so a brew stop at the Barns and then down to the loch where I will lunch and watch the clouds go by.
Later I’ll return via Strath Nethy as I have another walk planned for Thursday.
It is good to be retired!
Back to your lovely photos: The drums beside the canal (photo: Wulfrun coal yard) do concern me, as do all large and small drums that will rust and eventually leak. They may hold toxic chemicals and being so near water the wildlife will suffer. Thinking of old industrial landscapes and the suspect drums kindles another thought – I haven’t read Rachel Carson’s books in a long time. Her Silent Spring I read when it came out in ’63 I think it was.
Thanks again for the photos.
Rob fae Craigellachie