Pinfold Lane Quarry, Barr Beacon.

The December visit was the most successful, unlike the January meeting, which had to be moved to February due to bad weather. As the February visit was not well attended further work was postponed.

The December weather was frosty, cold and occasionally sunny when we met Helen Sanger (Senior Countryside Ranger – Walsall MBC) at 10:30 in the main Barr Beacon car park. Kindly Helen also came equipped with tea and coffee.

Clearance work generally involved removing a lot of undergrowth, mostly brambles which had appeared over the summer, and more trees from the bottom of the quarry. Much more work is still required at this site such as tree clearance, path improvements using existing on-site sources, and erecting some kind of interpretation display board. In February it was observed that horse riders are using and churning up the path through the bottom of the quarry and a new crack has opened up in the northern end of the Hopwas Breccia exposure. Apart from brambles the other issue facing the quarry and other sites like it are the cut backs in local Government and sapping of funds.