Hockley Heath

Umberslade Baptist Church is a redundant Baptist church southwest of the village of Hockley Heath, Solihull, West Midlands, England (grid reference SP147721). The church, attached school rooms, and the church hall were originally recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building in 1972, but on 9 July 2014, the grading was raised to II*. The building is under the care of the Historic Chapels Trust.

RAF Hockley Heath is a former Royal Air Force station located 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Solihull, Warwickshire, England, 7.7 miles (12.4 km) north-east of Redditch, Worcestershire. RAF Hockley Heath was opened in 1941 and was also known as Box Trees.

The Umberslade Obelisk is a Grade II listed monument in Warwickshire, England constructed by order of Thomas Archer, 1st Baron Archer, on his estate of Umberslade Hall in 1749. The obelisk is constructed from grey limestone and stands 70 ft (21 m) tall. The reason for its construction is unknown, but it may have simply been to enhance the view from the hall windows. The obelisk lies near the M40 motorway.

Lapworth is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England, which had a population of 2,100 according to the 2001 census; this had fallen to 1,828 at the 2011 Census. It lies seven miles (11 km) south of Solihull and ten miles (16 km) northwest of Warwick, and incorporates the hamlet of Kingswood. Lapworth boasts a historic church, the Church of St Mary the Virgin, a chapel. Two National Trust sites are nearby: Baddesley Clinton, a medieval moated manor house and garden located in the village of Baddesley Clinton; and Packwood House, a Tudor manor house and yew garden with over 100 trees in Packwood. The church is a building largely of the 13th and 14th centuries. It includes several unusual features: the steeple is connected by a passage to the north aisle and is built sheer with a projecting stair; the clerestory has square-headed windows; and there is a two-storey annex at the west end. In the church the Portland memorial to Florence Bradshaw was the work of Eric Gill and was installed in 1928. It is a Virgin and Child carved in low relief. The village is a popular area for cuisine, with three pubs "The Boot", "The Navigation" and "The Punch Bowl". At Kingswood Junction, the Grand Union Canal joins the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, which has a major flight of locks. Catesby Lane in Lapworth is named after William Catesby (the great grandfather of Robert Catesby of Gunpowder Plot fame), whose family had been settled at Bushwood Hall, in the neighbouring parish of Bushwood, since the 14th century. The manor house was probably at Lapworth Hall, today Ireland's Farm, and in the 17th and 18th centuries the house of the Mander family of Wolverhampton. The furniture designer and maker Hugh Birkett worked from the late 1940s until 1966 in the garage at his parents' home in Lapworth. Examples of his work can be seen at Cheltenham Museum.

Packwood is a medieval settlement and former civil parish of 1760 acres, now in the counties of the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. In 1194 the ownership of Packwood estate was disputed between the Bishop of Coventry and the Prior of Coventry. In 1951 the parish had a population of 990. The small rural area includes the Grade I listed sixteenth century National Trust property Packwood House, the separate Packwood Hall (Grade II listed) and its adjacent church of St Giles.

Dorridge is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands (county), England. Historically part of the historic county of Warwickshire, the village is encompassed within the electoral ward of Dorridge and Hockley Heath, which had a population of 11,140 in the 2011 census.

Umberslade Hall is a 17th-century mansion converted into residential apartments situated in Nuthurst near Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire. It is a Grade II* listed building.The Archer family were granted the manor of Umberslade by Henry II in the 12th century and retained possession for some 600 years. The old manor house was replaced between 1695 and 1700 when Smith of Warwick built the new mansion for Andrew Archer, Member of Parliament for Warwickshire. The estate passed to his son Andrew Archer, 2nd Baron Archer, after whose death in 1778 it was ultimately settled on his daughter Sarah, Countess of Plymouth. In 1751 Horace Walpole visited the estate and called it an odious place.The estate was sold in 1826 to Edward Bolton King, Member of Parliament for Warwick and for the County of Warwick, during whose time the ancient chapel at Nuthurst, near Hockley Heath was rebuilt and land was given for a church and school at Hockley Heath. From 1850 the house was leased by George Frederic Muntz, Member of Parliament for Birmingham. After his death in 1857 his son George Frederick bought the estate and much enlarged and improved the Hall. During this time Muntz junior had a church built on the estate, Umberslade Baptist Church, which exists to this day separately to the Hall. In 1881 the household comprised thirty including thirteen resident servants. Frederick Ernest Muntz who succeeded to the estate in 1898 served as High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1902 and as Deputy Lieutenant. The estate, much reduced, remains in the ownership of the Muntz family. From the 1960s the Hall was leased out to commercial tenants, including from 1967 BSA Motorcycles – Triumph Motorcycles, to merge their various design and development departments at a central point, roughly equi-distant from their manufacturing bases at Meriden, Redditch and Small Heath. Previously, the site had been similarly used by an industrial manufacturer of car components, Wilmot Breedon.In 1978 it was converted into twelve apartments and two mews cottages.

Dorridge railway station serves the village of Dorridge in the West Midlands of England. The station is served by Chiltern Railways, who manage the station, and also by West Midlands Trains. It is situated 10+1⁄2 miles (16.9 km) south of Birmingham Snow Hill.

The Knowle and Dorridge rail crash was a fatal rail crash that occurred at Dorridge railway station in the West Midlands, England, on 15 August 1963. Three people died in the crash after a signalman's error routed a small freight train into the path of an express passenger train which slowed but could not stop before colliding with it. The express was a Birmingham Pullman service travelling from Birmingham Snow Hill to London Paddington, having departed at 1pm. The freight train movement in Dorridge station (formerly called Knowle and Dorridge) was a routine shunting manoeuvre, one that often occurred both before or after the express train had passed through the station. The Pullman was 9 coaches long, and was hauled by an 11-month-old diesel hydraulic Class 52 "Western" locomotive, No. D1062 Western Courier. The freight train was formed (from the London end) of a 20-long-ton (22-short-ton; 20 t) hopper wagon, a large prairie steam locomotive (Class 5101 no.4111), a 20-long-ton (22-short-ton; 20 t) brake van, an empty bogie flatcar, and a bogie flatcar loaded with Land Rover vehicles. The crash occurred in fine dry weather, at around 1.10 pm. The express was travelling at its usual speed of around 80 mph (130 km/h) approaching the station when the driver noticed the Knowle and Dorridge distant signal at caution. He applied the brakes but was only able to reduce speed to 20 mph (32 km/h), before colliding with the freight train which was stationary on the same line, having stopped when the signalman showed the driver a red flag. The distant signal was only 902 yards (825 m) from Knowle's up main home signal, insufficient distance for the express to stop from 80 mph (130 km/h). The locomotive struck the loaded flat car crushing the cab, but without derailing. Two freight cars were derailed, with the rest pushed 64 yards (59 m) down the track. All four men on the freight train, the driver, fireman, shunter and guard, managed to jump clear before the collision. The driver, co-driver and second man on the express locomotive all died. It was found that the signalman at Knowle and Dorridge signal box had forgotten he had signalled that the up main line was clear for the express train and allowed the freight train onto the same line, in its path. On receiving a "train approaching" signal for the express, he realised his mistake, but was only able to alert the freight train by red flag. Although it braked to a halt, it could not be cleared from the main line in time to avoid the collision. As a contributory factor to the crash, it was found that the signalman, in clearing the express, had disregarded a standing order known as Regulation 4A, governing the safe operation of signals in sections of track where the minimum stopping distance for trains was shorter than the distance between signals. He had given "line clear" for the express train to the preceding signal box before receiving the required clearance from the following signal box. Instead, he should have sent a "blocking back inside home signal" message to Bentley Heath, the preceding signal box, so that the express train could have been slowed in plenty of time by the Bentley Heath distant signal at caution. However, it was not determined at the enquiry whether the signalman had cleared the express before or after allowing the conflicting freight movement. This may have been academic if the express had been cleared before the freight train was permitted to foul the up main line, even if Regulation 4A had been obeyed. The express train was normally formed by a Blue Pullman multiple unit, an experimental type of new luxury train built for pullman services, but this regular train had to be taken out of service and replaced by the stand-by diesel hydraulic. One of the drivers killed in the accident was Ernie Morris, one of the first drivers to be certified on the Blue Pullman sets, and who had featured in the 1962 British Transport Film "Lets Go To Birmingham", a driver's eye view of the Blue Pullman sets on a run from London Paddington to Birmingham Snow Hill. Two drivers were required on this working and the other driver killed was Sid Bench. The second man, also killed, was David Corkery who was only on the train to cover for the rostered man who had gone sick. David left a widow and two young children.

Monkspath Meadow is a 1.2 ha (3.0 acres) ancient hay-meadow and a biological site of Special Scientific Interest in the West Midlands. The site was notified in 1986 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is on the south-eastern edge of Monkspath. The site has recently been targeted for development for houses but these plans have been met with uproar from locals in Monkspath and nearby villages, such as Cheswick Green and Hockley Heath, as it would destroy such a special natural site. The site has probably been used as a hay meadow for over 800 years, and has not been ploughed for at least 200 years. It was originally at risk of development from the construction of a new local supermarket and garden centre in 1986. A little over half of the site was saved from development by a campaign led by Members of Warwickshire Nature Conservation Trust when proposals for the new supermarket were outlined. The remaining 1 ha (2.5 acres) of meadow was dug up by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust when the supermarket was built and relocated in 9 in (23 cm) deep turves to a new site at Temple Balsall. this involved destroying the existing orchid filled wildflower meadow at Temple Balsall and replacing it with the turves from Monkapath Meadow which were also destroyed in the process resulting in a field of poor quality rush and creeping thistle instead of an important wildflower meadow. Neither site is now accessible to the general public and The Warwickshire Wildlife Trust take no interest in either site having now removed it from their nature conservation handbook as one of their nature reserves. Today Notcutts Garden Centre manages the site under the direction of English Nature. The meadow supports a diverse level of flora with over 150 recorded species, including various grass species such as common bent (Agrostis capillaris), red fescue (Festuca rubra), Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanatus) and tufted hair-grass (Deschampsia cespitosa). Herbs include cowslip (Primula veris), betony (Stachys officinalis), great burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis), dyer's greenweed (Genista tinctoria), meadow thistle (Cirsium dissectum), saw-wort (Serratula tinctoria), heath grass (Danthonia decumbens), heath spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata), and common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata). Fauna includes for small heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), meadow brown (Maniola jurtina) and common blue (Polyommatus icarus) butterflies..

Packwood House is a timber-framed Tudor manor house in Packwood on the Solihull border near Lapworth, Warwickshire. Owned by the National Trust since 1941, the house is a Grade I listed building. It has a wealth of tapestries and fine furniture, and is known for the garden of yews.

Shelly Green is a settlement in the West Midlands conurbation, although it was not considered as such until the late 1990s. As of 2001 it had a population of 5,702.