Tag Archives: Looking back

Making Memories on the Rowley Hills

As part of the Living Memory project, Friends of Rowley Hills recently contributed to Making Memories, a new creative project exploring the local area and its rich history. Led by artist Hannah Boyd and Blue and White Creative, pupils from Grace Mary Primary School and St James’s CofE School participated in a series of workshops exploring Jim Rippin’s photography of the area, with knowledge contributed by FORH’s Mike Poulton and Bob Duncan about the hills’ flora, fauna and geology. You can read a full account of the project and see photos at https://livingmemory.live/making-memories/; below are comments from some of the pupils and their teachers.

Mrs Wood:

Watching the children explore the Rowley Hills area and engage with the activities was amazing! They were really engrossed and were fascinated by the talks they were given. It was a very enjoyable day and a wonderful experience for children and teachers alike.

Mrs Freeman:

The day was filled with fabulous opportunities to learn new art techniques whilst experiencing the natural habitat in our local environment.

The input from Hannah, Richard, Bob and Mike was excellent and we all learned a great deal about what the Rowley Hills have to offer!

Amy:

I enjoyed:

Learning new techniques

Painting with sticks and ink- it was fun!

Exploring blue rock and the onion rocks

Looking at different flowers

Seeing a bee on Mike’s top!

Logan:

I enjoyed everything but especially painting with sticks because I never knew you could do it! I loved learning about blue rock and I had a very great time doing it.

Kai:

I enjoyed all of the techniques and the information about butterflies. I loved the water colour pencils and most of all how my art turned out!

Muhammed:

I loved drawing with sticks and using the water colour pencils.

Annie:

I loved drawing with sticks as it was unusual and fun!

Mariel:

I enjoyed drawing with the black pens.

Barin:

I particularly enjoyed the journey up to blue rock where the landscape of Oldbury looked beautiful. I loved the activity where we drew a picture of choice. I enjoyed every single bit of the day!

Ammar:

I loved drawing with sticks as it was really beautiful!

Macie:

I enjoyed painting with sticks and the special water colour pencils. It was fun learning about the types of flowers.

Ben:

I enjoyed the painting with sticks and blue rock was an amazing part of nature.

‘Looking Back’ walk

Looking Back: Walk 2. A guided walk over Rowley Hills with archive photographs

‘Looking Back’ walk across Portway Hill

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On a fine and dry mid-September Saturday morning nineteen attendees assembled just inside the entrance to Bury Hill Park in anticipation of our Living Memory arranged ‘Looking Back’ guided walk across Portway Hill.

Our leaders for this event, Jim Rippin and Mike Poulton, took us on a circular tour of the Portway Hill site, stopping at pre-determined points to compare the scene that we were looking over today with Jim’s photographs taken in the 1950s when he was a lad. In many instances the view before us was totally unrecognizable from the photograph taken back then, because at the time, towards the end of the 1950s, deep granite quarries dominated the landscape. Names that were familiar to the local people of the day, Sampson, Old Sampson, New Turners Hill and Blue Rock Quarries have little meaning to the people living in this area today but back in the 19^th century and first half of the 20^th century many local people earned their living here in the quarries.

Jim showing members of the party one of his old photographs (image © Geoff Broadway).

To Jim these photographs transport him back to his childhood – this was his local playground, and fortunately for us today, back then he was the proud owner of a camera, somewhat unusual in those days especially for someone so young. Little could he have known then that the photographs he was taking at that time would be so significant today. He was among the very few people who photographed the local scene just as quarrying ceased for ever here in the 1950s. Resurrected, and digitised from photographs tucked away in boxes for most of his adult life, he has now compiled some of them into a pocket-sized book, perfect for carrying around, and a few of these books were handed out at the commencement of the walk so that the photographs could easily be referred to at the various stopping points as we walked across the hillside. A few photographs shown on the walk are exhibited here. To see more historical photographs of the area please visit the History page of our website.

One of the stops on the tour took us along the old double-hedgerow which was part of the disused public right of way which met Portway Hill a little to the north of Old Portway Farm. Here we were met by Wendy, the present owner of Old Portway Farm, who kindly invited us to look at the building in greater detail.

Working our way back towards the Wolverhampton Road down the south side of the hill Jim pointed out the location of Henley’s Farm and pig shed; this spot is now under housing along Kennford Close.

Our final stop of the day was around the brick-built cairn on the parcel of land owned by the Wildlife Trust where the event concluded with a group photograph.

Our grateful thanks go to Jim Rippin for his wonderful photographs, to Wendy at Old Portway Farmhouse for kindly inviting us on to her land, and to Geoff Broadway and his team at https://livingmemory.live for their generous support and for making this event happen.

We hope to repeat this walk again in the spring of 2019 so be sure to look out for the details on our website and book early.