Shadow Line:~ Field Notes
Wolverhampton is not deficient in rewilded wastes. These abandoned
remains of its industrial past are etched with the grey-greens and umbers of
nature creeping back. Down a cobbled street we found one such scrap of land. Most
pass by without knowing it’s there — the end of the road is just another dead
end to be ignored.
Along one side of the street, the railway embankment rises
in sheer blue brick, braided with wires at the summit. Blue bricks are the
stamp of the industrial Midlands. The red clay here is rich in iron, and when
baked at a high temperature the iron turns the bricks a blueish-black — a small
kind of alchemy. They are not only darker, but harder, denser, and resistant to
water.
Opposite, the wasteland is scuffed roughly with the golden
hues of moss and new-growth trees, lurking behind a crosshatch of wire. It is
winter, but winter in its last throes. At the far end of the street, the wire
was cut, and with a low shrug we pushed inside.
Beneath our feet, a soft blanket of moss and lichen spread
out unnaturally flat, hinting at the layers beneath. An abandoned industrial
building slept on the horizon, its colours blurred with the winter buddleia, weathered
green upon weathered green, but angular against the tangled branches. Further
in, through the tangle of undergrowth, a path had been cut by other explorers,
human and animal alike, tracing a line through stiff grass, leading us gently
downhill — the shape of
former order now given over to quiet drift. The ground whispered of its past.
Following the path, we ambled down to where a large basin of
open water had stolen trees, grasses, railings — all now half-submerged. Debris
drifted across the dark surface: bottles accumulating into fragile rafts, and
pale plastic forms — the ghosts of something once useful. The black water slipped
deep beneath two arches of the railway line, as though it emerged from some
hidden place within. Here, entropy had been set loose, softening edges and silting
over purpose. Even the sign, once declaring the dangers of entering the
tunnels, now hung half-submerged against a gaping, open gate, obsolete. All was
quiet, still, uncanny — as if all this, including ourselves, might remain
forgotten at this sunken threshold.
After we left, I scoured old maps. The darkness beneath the
arches held a deeper secret — a literal one. These had once been tunnels for
the Wolverhampton section of the low-level railway, owned by Great Western.
Trains would rumble into the shadows here and re-emerge in the overworld some
350 metres southeast, at Lower Horseley Fields, before continuing on to
Birmingham’s Moor Street and Snow Hill, and finally to London Paddington. The
mossy flats that we’d crossed at the threshold were the remnants of the old
railway routes. Where the tracks had once lain, nature had now placed its patient
claim.
I later returned alone. I wondered how far the water
stretched along the tunnels, so I followed their route overground to Horseley
Fields. Familiar blue brick gleamed faintly in the distance and showed the way
to the railway embankments. Within the crevice formed by their slopes, another
pool waited, stretching away from the street and darkening into blackness
beneath another two arches.
The whole route of the underground tunnels must be flooded,
forming a canal — a shadow line beneath the city. Silent, still, dark water,
stalking the daylight. An accidental canal, lost between worlds. Above it, the
world carries on: streets end abruptly, fences quietly yield, and hardy blue
bricks glint in the weak sun — unnoticed.
All text and photography copyright Jen Dixon 2025.
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| 1919 map of the tunnel (dotted lines - centre). |
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| Map of the Bushbury & Wolverhampton Railway Junction, 1903 and 1914. |