Staffordshire Walks, Sandwell Valley (3)

The picture was taken in March 2008 and we had a cup of tea on a bench looking at an extensive Heronry. To our surprise chicks were hatching in several nests, and with the binoculars you could see their heads peeping over the nests.

Sandwell Priory was a small medieval Benedictine monastery, near West Bromwich, then part of Staffordshire, England. It was founded in the late 12th century by a local landowner and was only modestly endowed. It had a fairly turbulent history and suffered considerably from mismanagement. It was dissolved in 1525 at the behest of Cardinal Wolsey – more than a decade before the main Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwell_Priory