Category Archives: Uncategorized

This area of land forms quite a complex challenge to describe and also define visually  in terms of what it used to be and what it has now become. It is the middle part from which the land changed use … Continue reading →

William Blake   Rattlechain lagoon Rattlechain brickworks Birmingham Mainline Canal Tividale Sewage Works The new rattlechain brickworks pit that would become “The Duport’s tip”. Dudley Road allotments Brades Hall farm (Monks farm) The Gower Branch Canal. Rose Lane in red.  … Continue reading →

In the case of the now little known Rose Lane of Oldbury, “invisible worms” came by lorry under the guise of some “transport” haulage company or “waste disposal” operation and left the land saturated with chemical sickness. Rose Lane ran in … Continue reading →

Swearword box at the ready. This Conservative Government is increasingly becoming worse in its policy decisions. The recent outlined changes to the planning system, which have been progressively watered down over the years to the benefit of Tory party political … Continue reading →

  There are very few documented cases of the environmental release of white phosphorus on a large scale, (apart from its misuse in war….oh sorry “smokescreening”), but one such instance occurred in Ohio in the US in 1986, and yes … Continue reading →

A story from The Wakefield and West Riding Herald from 27th July 1907 reveals how it got a little steamy beneath the sheets for a husband and wife who had retired to bed.  😛 It probably wasn’t the kind of … Continue reading →

    I have set out previously many explosions associated with the Trinity Street site and its chemical firm fiends Albright and Wilson.   Take this example from 1899 which killed a man and seriously burnt others.  Not only do … Continue reading →

  The pompous fake legacy of this Quaker chemical manufacturer became well established and cemented in the area where his company really wrought havoc, pollution and death. Civic society and libraries have disgraced themselves in promoting the philanthropic fable for … Continue reading →

I have previously outlined how workers at Samuel Barnett‘s dangerous Rattlechain brickworks site had died but had received little in the way of public attention. Another had seriously broken his leg leaving him unable to work.  The main architect of … Continue reading →

Well, I thought I had found all there was available to find with the former Rattlechain brickworks, which forms the bowl of the hazardous waste lagoon of today, but how wrong I was! I have found an extraordinary article from … Continue reading →