Warley Woods

[Ginger the cat]

It is July 4th and I have just listened to BBC Radio 4 Open Country which today concerned Warley Woods. As a native Smethwickian, although for many decades now only a very occasional visitor, I had always thought the Woods to be part of Oldbury, but the boundaries in this country are rarely in straight lines. However the program did attribute them to Smethwick. One of the contributors spoke about the sledging slope which he said was certainly the best in the Midlands and perhaps the whole country. I remember my brother taking me at night in those regular snowy winters that we seemed to have every year, to the slope that was known amongst the local youth as the Death Track.
Has anyone else memories of this?

 

[rosie]

That slope! My brother said it would be fun to go down on my front on the sledge instead of sitting down, all the snow went down inside my duffle coat!
The ownership of Lightwoods Park and the Woods is complicated but it is explained on their website.
rosie.

 

[SmethwickGirl]

It is July 4th and I have just listened to BBC Radio 4 Open Country which today concerned Warley Woods. As a native Smethwickian, although for many decades now only a very occasional visitor, I had always thought the Woods to be part of Oldbury, but the boundaries in this country are rarely in straight lines. However the program did attribute them to Smethwick. One of the contributors spoke about the sledging slope which he said was certainly the best in the Midlands and perhaps the whole country. I remember my brother taking me at night in those regular snowy winters that we seemed to have every year, to the slope that was known amongst the local youth as the Death Track.
Has anyone else memories of this?

Oh yes, fond memories of the death track in the snowy winter of 1978/9, we spent hours up the Woods sledging on there, it was pure ice and very, very fast. Definitely a few bumps and bruises amongst our little gang.

Good times though, the boys showing off to us girls.

Not winter time, but just a couple of photos I took this summer when lockdown eased and we were finally able to walk out dog up there again.

 

[Arnold Mason]

I too can remember sledging in Warley Woods in the early 50's. It must have been quite a walk for me and my friend David from the Holly Bush Quinton up to the woods with the sledge but the rewards were worth it. I remember one year the 'death run' had been salted as it was considered too dangerous, much to our disappointment!

 

[Pedrocut]

January 1939, Birmingham Daily Post.

 

[Stokkie]

I'm delighted that Warley Woods continues to flourish under Warley Woods Community Trust who have some history pages. https://www.warleywoods.org.uk/Pages/FAQs/Category/history
I lived in Bearwood as a child until my 30s, so I have many memories including winter sledging. Part of the cost of buying the woods was raised by public subscription and the balance by Birmingham City Council, who opened the woods as a public park in 1906. It was never located in Birmingham but in Bearwood, Smethwick and Oldbury Staffordshire. This picture was taken on Opening Day.

 

[Stokkie]

I was one when 'Warley Abbey' was demolished, so I have only seen paintings and photographs. Does anyone remember the building? Folk memory talks about monks, but this is a misapprehension as this was never a religious building.

Samuel Galton Jnr, a Birmingham gunmaker, bought the Warley Hall estate in 1792 and commissioned the garden designer Humphry Repton to design the grounds in 1794. Contractors were used to do the work. Repton was the first designer to style himself 'a landscape gardener.' Repton's before and after sketches in his Red Book may be seen. His sketches for a house were not used and the architect Robert Lugar designed it in the fashionable gothic style. Thought too costly to restore, the house was demolished in 1957.

[Source: Smethwick Local History Society]

 

[Astoness]

I was one when 'Warley Abbey' was demolished, so I have only seen paintings and photographs. Does anyone remember the building? Folk memory talks about monks, but this is a misapprehension as this was never a religious building.

Samuel Galton Jnr, a Birmingham gunmaker, bought the Warley Hall estate in 1792 and commissioned the garden designer Humphry Repton to design the grounds in 1794. Contractors were used to do the work. Repton was the first designer to style himself 'a landscape gardener.' Repton's before and after sketches in his Red Book may be seen. His sketches for a house were not used and the architect Robert Lugar designed it in the fashionable gothic style. Thought too costly to restore, the house was demolished in 1957.
View attachment 188959
[Source: Smethwick Local History Society]

what a lovely ornate building that was derek

lyn

 

[Stokkie]

what a lovely ornate building that was derek

lyn

Lyn, yes it is another sad loss, at least the Woods continue to thrive and the house in Lightwoods Park which is nearby. Derek

 

[Astoness]

Lyn, yes it is another sad loss, at least the Woods continue to thrive and the house in Lightwoods Park which is nearby. Derek

we must be grateful derek.. but i would have loved a walk around that place




lyn

 

[rosie]

A few years ago There were some excavations done and the foundations were exposed, I was told they would be made into flower beds but they were covered in again as there wasn't much left. It was interesting to try and visualise what it was like years ago. There was an ice-house too. Such a waste, yet again!
rosie,

 

[Stokkie]

A few years ago There were some excavations done and the foundations were exposed, I was told they would be made into flower beds but they were covered in again as there wasn't much left. It was interesting to try and visualise what it was like years ago. There was an ice-house too. Such a waste, yet again!
rosie,

I didn't know there was once an ice house, Rosie. But no self-respecting grand house would be without one! There were gate houses too at one time. I'll post something on the history of gardening and Birmingham Parks Dept who were based there into the 1990s. The rose garden was delightful. Derek

 

[Stokkie]

George Bretherick was Warley Park superintendent from 1906-1935. He laid out flowerbeds around the Abbey, with exotic plantings following an exhibition of ‘French Gardening’.

He used the old walled kitchen garden for Warley Abbey as a plant nursery for Birmingham Parks Department growing tender plants in glasshouses. The final greenhouse was demolished as late as 1996.

At its peak the nursery employed 20 gardeners and apprentices including some ex-service labour growing a variety of plants and vegetables.

They supplied cut flowers for the council house in Birmingham and put on a display of vegetables at the Handsworth Show each year. There was an orchard, a mushroom house. The nursery area wasn’t open to the public, but at times produce was sold and there were demonstrations of gardening techniques.
Adapted from https://www.warleywoods.org.uk/FAQs/1900-2004

 

[Stokkie]

'French Gardening' was organised by Suttons Seeds in 1910 and seems to involve cloches, cold frames covered with mats, and hot beds to warm up the soil. Apparently it was all the rage in England before 1914.

 

[Stokkie]

Warley Abbey photographed in 1956 before demolition the following year.

 

[Stokkie]

The landscape with its encircling trees remains emotionally charged for me. The hill sloping down to a valley in which there used to be a stream running into a pool near the Abbey Road entrance in very wet winters. This pool was drained long ago and I suspect the stream has disappeared entirely now except when there is significant run off.

I used to run through the woods at dusk or night for relaxation as I was in a difficult time in my 20s being my mother's carer. Warley Woods can appear haunted, I suspect this is because of the physical landscape, in foggy weather mist can appear to move over the valley bottom and parts of the landscape appear suddenly cold. Stories of the Grey Lady still circulate in the area. I don't believe that 'ghosts' are the spirits of the dead, but perhaps they can be representations of the past in popular memory or as here heightened emotion triggered by landscape features.

 

[rosie]

The pool appears afer very heavy rain Stokkie, my dog used to love a padddle! They put a bridge/culvert at the end of the carriage driveway over the reamains of the stream.
I wrote a story at school about the Grey Lady.
rosie.

 

[Stokkie]

The pool appears afer very heavy rain Stokkie, my dog used to love a padddle! They put a bridge/culvert at the end of the carriage driveway over the reamains of the stream.
I wrote a story at school about the Grey Lady.
rosie.

Rosie, it's good that the pool and the memory of the Grey Lady persist. We have certainly had some wet weather lately. Derek

 

[becky1981]

It is July 4th and I have just listened to BBC Radio 4 Open Country which today concerned Warley Woods. As a native Smethwickian, although for many decades now only a very occasional visitor, I had always thought the Woods to be part of Oldbury, but the boundaries in this country are rarely in straight lines. However the program did attribute them to Smethwick. One of the contributors spoke about the sledging slope which he said was certainly the best in the Midlands and perhaps the whole country. I remember my brother taking me at night in those regular snowy winters that we seemed to have every year, to the slope that was known amongst the loc

It is July 4th and I have just listened to BBC Radio 4 Open Country which today concerned Warley Woods. As a native Smethwickian, although for many decades now only a very occasional visitor, I had always thought the Woods to be part of Oldbury, but the boundaries in this country are rarely in straight lines. However the program did attribute them to Smethwick. One of the contributors spoke about the sledging slope which he said was certainly the best in the Midlands and perhaps the whole country. I remember my brother taking me at night in those regular snowy winters that we seemed to have every year, to the slope that was known amongst the local youth as the Death Track.
Has anyone else memories of this?

al youth as the Death Track.
Has anyone else memories of this? Yes I do I was born in 1981 so it would of been about 1989 when me a my friends use to slide down a very big deep drop over Warley woods. It was great fun when it had been snowing or was icy but we didn't call it devils slope we called it devils drop. I wonder if it was the same slope??

Yes I do I was born in 1981 so it would of been about 1989 when me a my friends use to slide down a very big deep drop over Warley woods. It was great fun when it had been snowing or was icy but we didn't call it devils slope we called it devils drop. I wonder if it was the same slope??

 

[Stokkie]

Yes I do I was born in 1981 so it would of been about 1989 when me a my friends use to slide down a very big deep drop over Warley woods. It was great fun when it had been snowing or was icy but we didn't call it devils slope we called it devils drop. I wonder if it was the same slope??

I think that slope has had different names over the years Becky in the oral stories of local children. But it is the same slope and astonishing that the grounds were laid out by Humphry Repton from 1794. I have fond memories of the woods. I bet you heard stories of the Grey Lady too? It is wonderful that Warley Woods still exist for the pleasure of local people.

Derek