Woke up this morning and found we’d been gifted with a light dusting of snow, rekindling the strange fascination that the British have with the fluffy white stuff.
Great Barr – Where the snow lay roundabout, deep and crisp and even
It’s has become somewhat the cliché to state that with the first sign of snow, the country grinds to a halt. Even so, to employ yet another tired cliché, there’s no smoke without fire, and it’s been proved time and again that the slightest dusting does indeed bring things to a standstill.
You may have heard of Bill Shakespeare, commonly known as the Bard. He wrote a few overrated plays 400-or-so years ago, did very little in the intervening years, then appeared on Doctor Who in 2007.
Last Friday we paid a wintry visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the Bard’s birthplace, and here be a few of the photos. The delay in posting isn’t because I’m still using film and had to get the photographs developed. No, I originally wrote several paragraphs of nonsense to frame them, but then realised I had very little to say. So here they be, minus the nonsense.
A few notes. The shop all lit up like a dog’s dinner, with the abandoned pushchair containing the shouty daughter outside, is the Nutcracker Christmas Shop. Step inside and with one breath of the cinnamon-scented air you’ll think it’s Christmas all year round. Which it is. In this shop anyways.
Following on from my previous aborted attempt at locating Great Barr Hall – a decent view to photograph, anyway – I decided to take another look. This time I was prepared, having consulted both Google Maps and a mate of mine who’s known to walk his Staffie around there.
So off I ventured onto the half-built estate that’s sprung up on the grounds of the old St. Margaret’s Mental Hospital and, more importantly, into the woods that surround it.
The research I undertook (all 30 seconds of it) prior to my expedition paid dividends, as instead of the tangled jungle of undergrowth I encountered last time, the woods quickly opened onto a steep, makeshift drive, lined by trees and the ruins of outbuildings, which inclined down to Great Barr Hall… or what remained of it
So, with it being such a lovely day(!) and the shouty daughter otherwise engaged at mother and baby club, I decided to go for a stroll around the new estate by us. I took my camera, as I had a plan.
The estate is built on the grounds of the old St. Margaret’s mental hospital in Great Barr – or the “Great Barr Idiot Colony” as it was originally called in the less enlightened early 1900s. The buildings that made up the hospital stood alongside Great Barr Hall, a Gothic mansion that has stood in some form or other since the late 1700s. The Hall was used as part of the hospital between 1918 and 1978.
The main buildings of St. Maggies, as we’ve always known it, are completely gone, but as far as I’m aware Great Barr Hall still stands, albeit in a state of disrepair, having been partially burnt to the ground just prior to the new houses being built. Here’s an aerial map of the old hospital grounds.
My aforementioned plan was to get some snaps of the Hall.
Nick James is a freelance copywriter and blogger, providing web and print-based copywriting services to businesses across all industries. He also writes Head Full of Snow. To discuss your needs and receive a FREE, no obligation, estimate, get in touch today.
Great Barr – Where the snow lay roundabout, deep and crisp and even
birmingham, photographs, reminisce, snow | Jeffman | 
January 5, 2010 4:01 pm | 
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Nick James is a freelance copywriter and blogger, providing web and print-based copywriting services to businesses across all industries. He also writes 
