USE OUR NEW W MIDLANDS NATIONAL PARK OR, LOSE IT TO CONCRETE, BRICK AND TARMAC
My route for the Dowery Dell unofficial Trail (for the adventurously spirited young at heart) through Doctor’s Coppice, is this. It is the least well defined/obvious section from Hunnington to Longbridge:
HIGHLIGHTS to tick off as you walk through Doctor’s Coppice -
50-year-old wood with dry streams but one ditch with, surprisingly, a little water;
a triangular tree formed ‘door’ to go through;
an enormous, ancient, coppiced oak tree and,
a great concrete block leftover from the M5 construction.;
THE ROUTE
From the narrow, twisting trail in Round Saw Croft (owned by Gary Colin Mabley who has given permission for walking), you come to Newtown Lane where there is a culverted (dry) stream bed under Newtown Lane near its junction with Yew Tree Lane and the road called Frankley Green (but Oxwood Lane on the OS Standard online map).
At the edge of the tarmac, up the road to your right is the start of a Roadside Verge Nature Reserve marked by a red and white wooden post. On the SE side of the old bridge, drop immediately down into the biggest of three ditches to come before the public footpath through the M5 subway. Step over two strands of low, loose barbed wire. Climb up the narrow, short but steep ridge-bank that broadens out between two (dry) stream valleys that can be seen either side of you. Keep to this higher ground, gently uphill and head towards the conifer plantation that you must keep in sight to your right as you walk on. Cross over a log, then down and up the second ditch followed by walking through a triangle ‘door’ formed by a fallen silver birch tree leaning on a hazel. One at a time. Keep in the broadleaf woodland but near to the conifer wood on your right; over the third ditch and immediately walk on top of a low bank, with ditch on right, to take you to the edge of the woodland alongside an open field. Keep this field in sight to your right but stay in the open wood. Find a large oak that may have been coppiced over 100 years ago. Keep straight on. Then lookout for an isolated short section of old post and rail fencing. Go to the right of it. Then head for an enormous block of concrete with, perhaps, a blue engineering brick I placed on it this morning.
You will then see a gap in the old broken fence and the subway straight in front and below you. Success! There follows 3.5 Kms of easy walking to Longbridge High Street with its attractive R Rea landscaping where the Austin motor works once stood. Return home by bus via Selly Oak Triangle for the no 11. The walk is 8 to 10 Kms from Halesowen town centre to Longbridge shopping centre, depending on how you get to Blue Bird Park to pick up the trail.
WALKING IT FROM HUNNINGTON CRICKET GROUND - park in their car park with permission at the bar in the clubhouse. There is also a bus service - 147 between Halesowen and Bromsgrove. Please don’t park in Station Drive.
One route to the Halesowen Railway and our 1883 opened single track railway line is through (permission granted) Hunnington cricket ground opposite the Blue Bird sweet factory in Bromsgrove Road. KEEP OFF STATION DRIVE.
Walk round the cricket ground boundary, through the attractive open woodland to the public right of way parallel to the caravan storage park that is in the railway cutting, to as far as the Cherry memorial bench. There is no permission to the viaduct on the track bed. However, we have permission on Gary Mabley’s land from the former Dowery Dell viaduct to the M5 subway. It is steep and rough at the long since removed viaduct to climb onto Gary’s railway line. Continue walking to the M5 subway. You will be maintaining a 137-year-old tradition of walking the railway. And until the 1960s, risking the 40 shillings fine for trespassing on the railway and being rudely interrupted in your stroll by yelling train drivers to “Get off the bloody line!”
Tim Weller 23 May 2020
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