Taken at Sandwell Valley Country Park, here in the West Midlands.
Believe it or not, since moving here in 1995, this is the first time I've visited this park and was very surprised at the scale and amenities within it!
A brief history:
Sandwell Valley Country Park is a country park, run by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, in Sandwell Valley, on the River Tame in the middle of the urban conurbation between Birmingham and West Bromwich in the West Midlands of England.
Sandwell Valley Country Park was once the site of Sandwell Priory, a 12th century Benedictine monastery which itself was founded on the site of an earlier hermitage. The monastery was closed on the orders of Cardinal Wolsey in 1525 and by 1705 the land was redeveloped once more, into Sandwell Hall, built for the Earl of Dartmouth. From the late 19th century the Hall was used as an asylum, calling itself "Sandwell Hall Industrial School for Mentally Defective Boys".In 1928 Sandwell Hall was demolished due to subsidence caused by mining at Hamstead Colliery and Sandwell Park (Jubilee) Colliery which between them employed over 1,000 miners. A coal tramway ran from the Jubilee pit through the Sandwell Park to the canal / railway at West Bromwich.
By the 1960s the site was developed into the Country Park with up to 2,000 acres (810 ha) set aside for amenities such as three golf courses, a Millennium Cycle Route, 2 off-road cycle paths and open spaces close to the heart of a major UK city that attracts over 20,000 visitors per year.
The RSPB site here attracts over 150 different species of birds.
So, now that I've finally discovered this amazing Park on my doorstep, expect plenty more shots to come!
That is really lovely! Viewed large, the colours in the water are gorgeous and the detail on the feather is superb. Great reflections. Really subtle beauty. Fav.
Beautiful. I had to look twice as I thought you had superimposed one photo on another. Great to find something like this close to home. Will look forward to more from here.
