Moving to The West Midlands

We moved from The Medway Towns in South-east of England in the early nineties to the West Midlands to go narrow boating on the canals. I worked for premier narrow boat builders Les Allen and Sons at Velencia Wharf in Oldbury and we bought a small seventeenth century cottage in Corngreaves road nearly opposite Corngreaves Hall beside what was then Clancey's Foundary and the river Stour. The Hall was then in use or part use, as the clubhouse and car park of Corngreaves Golf Course which was a municipal eighteen hole course where I walked my Alsatian dog night and morning for the five years we lived happily in Holmestead Cottage. At the time there was a part derelict but nearly intact nail making shop built onto the back of a cottage just up the road, which still had the little forge and all the rusted tools hanging from the rafters, in the Highstreet near the railway station the site of the large chain makers where the anchor chain for the Titanic amongst other ships was made, was still very much as it had been in its heyday.