Nearest Bus stops:

Stockland Greem, Reservoir Road (Stop:SE)

Stockland Green, Slade Road (Stop: SD)

Stockland Green, Slade Road (Stop SC)

Route Developer: TS

[1] Leave Beechcroft Day Centre by the main drive, turn right into Slade Road past shop fronts, some of which date to the late 19th Century, and follow it to the busy Ring Road junction. Continue ahead over the Reservoir Road traffic lights into Streetly Road.

(A) The large Tudor style building on the opposite corner is the former Stockland Hotel, one of a breed of M&B pubs built in the 1920s to serve the motorist. When opened it boasted a formal garden and bowling green.

Continue ahead across Marsh Lane to the Plaza Cinema corner.

(B) The Plaza opened with ‘The Cat and the Canary’ in 1928, when all films were silent. Talkies soon arrived and the cinema kept going for 50 years, mostly under the same manager, Frank Riego. Now it’s a faded Bingo Hall, but traces of the original decorative whirls can still be seen above the entrance.

Turn left across Streetly Road, using the pedestrian crossing outside the cinema, and turn right into it.

(C) The central reservation that divides the carriageways was created in 1926 to carry the tramway.

Continue gently downhill along Streetly Road past typical interwar Council houses on the left crossing Dallas, Blounts and Marlow Roads.

[2] At the bottom of the hill turn left through a fence gap and follow the paved path along a narrow grassy strip, past 1960s houses on the left and allotments on the right, to a tower block. Keep to the right hand side of the tower block (Wyrley House) and emerge onto Bleak Hill Road. Cross the road by the crossing and go through a fence gap with an awkward dip. Follow the gravel path ahead along the left edge of a wide grassy strip to Witton Lakes (D).

(D) The brook which ran through Witton Slade was dammed to create a string of drinking water reservoirs for Birmingham around 1860. They could not keep up with demand and became redundant when the Elan Valley scheme was completed. These two lakes are now a leisure amenity.

Keep left at the first lake and follow the tarmac lakeside path. This is part of the North Birmingham Cycle/Walkway from Sutton Park to the City Centre, via greenways and canals. Continue ahead across the end of a causeway and on to a weir at the far end of the second lake. Here leave the lakeside path and take the tarmac path ahead quite steeply down beside the weir overflow. Follow the path through a grassy strip, with Witton Brook on your right, to the Marsh Hill dual-carriageway, close to the pub (the Hare & Hounds on the left).

[3] Cross Marsh Hill at the pedestrian lights, to your left, and turn right into it. Just before the bus stop turn first left, down the dropped kerb, onto the road surface of Boulton Walk (there is a lack of dropped kerbs ahead). Follow this quiet cul-de-sac ahead past cottage style houses dating from 1926, then first right through a grassy area and across Witton Brook. At the junction ahead opposite number 7 cross George Road, using the raised crossing on the left.

Turn left into George Road and take the first right footpath through trees. Just before some bollards cut left across the grass for a few yards onto a parallel path and follow this beside Witton Brook and over a cross path.

(E) Look left across the end of the lake to see the sculpture of a curled up dove, a peace monument created by Michael Scheuermann in 2004.

Follow the path through Brookvale Park (F) with the boating lake on your left.

(F) This, another of Birmingham’s early reservoirs, was taken over by Erdington as the centrepiece for its new Brookvale Park in 1909.

Continue on past the car park on the left and barely visible and wheelchair accessible fishing platform. At the far end of the lake, beside the lodge, turn left between plant boxes onto the wide path that skirts the end of the lake. When the path divides take the right fork past a games court and play area, and beside a hedge (on the left, enclosing a bowling green) to the exit on the Park Road / George Road corner.

(G) The shiny gate posts making the exit topped with bullrushes record local memories. The photographs celebrating the centenary year of Brookvale Park are interesting.

[4] Leave the park, bear left across George Road and turn left into it. At the next junction cross Doidge Road and turn right into it. Follow Doidge Road around a left hand bend and quite steeply uphill to the T-junction. Cross Mere Road, using the ramp to the left, and turn right into it. Turn first left into Queens Road, continue uphill across Redbank Avenue, and regain the left hand pavement at the next ramp. Continue along Queens Road and, after a right hand corner, along Kings Road.

(H) The late Victorian terraces here, with Gothic details, square bays, and varied foliage panels and timber porches, are rather spoilt by replacement windows. There are some pretty gardens. No 27 has geese.

Keep on to the T-junction, turn left into Slade Road and follow it over Hampton Road towards the Campus entrance. Cross Slade Road, using the pedestrian crossing just before the Campus gate, and continue along it back to the Day Centre on the right.

This circular walk follows greenways past former reservoirs to Brookvale Park and returns through pleasant Victorian back streets. There are public benches by the lakes and a pub at Marsh Hill. All kerbs encountered have drops, or are easily negotiated, unless otherwise stated. Manual wheelchair users will need assistance on Doidge Road as the gradient is quite steep for some distance.