Birmingham; Friday, 07 June, 2013

After a leisurely breakfast I walked down to New Street station to catch the train out to Shenstone and from there walked the two miles or so out to the small town of Wall.

Today just before you enter Wall you pass under the M6 Toll motorway, and then the A5 road before reaching the main street running through the village, Watling Street, following the same path it has since the Romans built it to link Rutupiae to Viroconium (Now Richborough near Sandwich, Kent and Wroxeter in Shropshire). Clearly still the best route to get from the South East of England to the north of Wales.

The reason for visiting Wall was to have a look at the remains of the Roman staging post that sat beside Watling Street. Today just parts of the Bath house and a Mansio have been uncovered but even these small remains give an idea to the importance of this route.

I had a bit of a wander around Wall hoping that I could find the bus stop for the bus on into Lichfield as I didn’t really fancy the two mile walk back in the hot sun, but just as I spied it in the distance the once every two hours bus sailed passed me and the bus stop. So instead I retraced my steps back to Shenstone and the train back into Birmingham.

After a quick lunch stop in Birmingham I headed back out the opposite side of the city towards Stourbridge Junction and then on the tiny train that runs down the hill into Stourbridge Town, I had a bit of a walk around Stourbridge, but there wasn’t that much to see, and I was only killing time until the bus for the final leg of my journey onto Kinver was due.

I got off the bus in the centre of Kinver and walked the mile or so out to the Rock Houses at Kinver Edge.

Having had a look around the rock houses I had a bit of a walk along Kinver edge and up to the little church that is perched spectacularly overlooking the town centre. I then walked back down into town just in time to miss the bus back into Stourbridge, so I stopped for a pint at the pub just by the bus stop.

I caught the next bus into Stourbridge and wandered over to the station to catch the train back up the hill to Stourbridge junction and then on into Birmingham. Unfortunately, the train had developed a fault so they had cancelled all the services for the foreseeable future, so instead I wandered back to the bus stop and picked up the bus back into Birmingham, which took quite a bit longer, but did at least give me a chance to see some different bits of the West Midlands.

On the plus side, the bus dropped me back even closer to the hotel than the train would have done. After a quick freshen up I wandered out into Birmingham to find dinner.