A Walk in the Park: Lavender Hall Park
Oct 23 2009 by Graham Young, Birmingham Mail
EVEN though this column is now entering its fifth year there are still plenty of local parks like this one which I’ve yet to explore.
This speaks volumes about just how much green space we’ve got to play with.
Lavender Hall Park in Balsall Common is an elongated area with a 1,750-metre nature trail.
You can leave your car just off Lavender Hall Lane and either go for a kickabout on the football pitch or use the skate park – which has noticeably less graffiti than its inner city equivalents.
In fact, with nobody using it all at the time of our visit, my eldest two children, Holly and Louie, devised their own ball game since they haven’t got a skateboard between them.
Though only designated a Public Open Space in the year 2000, the park became an official Local Nature Reserve in 2008.
In order to keep it looking good, it certainly helps that as soon as you enter it there are various signs making it abundantly clear what will not be tolerated.
Dog mess, alcohol, motorcycles and even horses – given the semi-rural location – are all off limits.
This pro-active approach helps you to feel safe and welcome in a landscape where the various birds you might see could include bullfinch, goldfinch, song thrush and house martin.
Several other families were enjoying long walks, some with little children on bicycles with stabilisers or others with well-behaved dogs.
While my wife took our three children off on a looped walk, I ended up spending longer than anticipated in the four-acre Katherine’s Wood.
Planted between 2006-08 in memory of Katherine Courts, who died tragically on March 10, 2006, there are more than 2000 trees and shrubs with species including oak, small-leaved lime, willows and rowan, with hazel, holly and Guelder-rose.
The site was funded with help from the Rotary Club of Meridan and the Big Lottery ‘Breathing Places’ scheme – which is also now backing a new bird feeding enclosure.
In fact, with the sunshine and dark clouds combining magnificently, I was enjoying myself so much that everyone else was on the way back again towards me before I’d thought of catching up.
It might be rather depressing to think that winter is just around the corner.
But days like this certainly make you realise that October is actually one of the finest months of the year.
And especially so in a place like Lavender Hall.
* Visitor Info
THE park’s hedgerows and oak trees are part of the historic Forest of Arden.
For more information about Lavender Hall Park, Lavender Hall Lane, Balsall Common call 0121 704 8000.
Friends of Lavender Hall Park – contact Izumi Segawa at Warwickshire Wildlife Trust by emailing izumi.segawa@wkwt.org.uk or call 02476 302912.
On Tuesday next week, there’s a Leaf Rainbows event from 10.30am-1.30pm, when children will be able to create ‘a rainbow of autumn colours collected from the park’.
