There's already an Adventure Lab with a Bonus based on a "Saunter" around Modern Shirley but this one is different in that it tries to get you to imagine what the place was like 200 or 300 years ago when it was known as Shirley Street.
Most of the hamlet grew up along the road to Stratford from the crossing of roads where Poppy Island now stands. Shirley Street became a turnpike road to Oxford & beyond in 1725. The 1843 census shows the population was only 1,100, mostly farmers, saddlers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights & bricklayers, although lots of folk came out from Birmingham to visit pubs & inns which in those days were seen as dens of iniquity. Gradually Shirley gained places for religious worship and a, somewhat distant, railway station was built in 1908, so the village gradually became the more civilised & commercial place we know today. During the 1920s & 30s many houses were built, attracting new residents and its population grew to 7,233 by 1931, which meant more schools, shops & other civic amenities.
Electricity came to the town in 1926 and Shirley Recreation Ground opened the following year as a green space among the developments. Now Shirley Park, this has football, cricket & rugby pitches, plus tennis courts. It used to have a mini golf course & bowling green, but these were replaced by flower beds & outdoor exercise equipment around 2010. When questioned, many locals claimed not to know of the park’s existence so the most recent development was to highlight the entrances with wrought iron decorative arches and add a new pedestrian walkway through a revamped Shopping Centre to the 2014 British Legion war memorial. There used to be an outdoor Lido pool nearby and about a mile away was Shirley Racecourse, now a golf course. Like most towns in the UK, Shirley is struggling to maintain a varied shopping experience, although the free short term parking on the service roads either side of the Stratford Road gives easy access to the shops.
And the junction where it all started had now become "Poppy Island"! In the 1990's there was a simple crossroads here controlled by traffic lights, but this was redesigned in 2017 with an oblong island to ease traffic flow and it was decided to decorate it with the town’s purloined emblem, the Shirley Poppy. I say 'purloined' as it has nothing to do really with this part of Solihull, being a variety of poppy created in 1880 by Rev. W. Wilks who named it after his parish - Shirley near Croydon in Surrey! Nevethless this spectacular work of art was unveiled early on 11th Nov 2017 in time for the Remembrance Day parade and is very well thought of locally.
Because of the Shirley Saunter Adventure Lab & Bonus Cache in Shirley which has several sites very close to the ones I chose I am not able to list the 5 Adventure Lab locations as separate Waypoints but I list them below in case folk are interested to know where they are and whether it might be worth doing my Adv Lab:-
N 52° 24.974' W 001° 49.731' The Olde Cock Inn
N 52° 24.714' W 001° 49.622' The Saracens Head
N 52° 24.375' W 001° 49.602' The Shirley Institute
N 52° 24.311' W 001° 49.364' The Union (site of)
N 52° 24.767' W 001° 49.650' Ye Olde Garage
They can be visited in any order.
To find this cache:
Using the information you have gained from some of the adventure lab locations, you can find the cache at
N 52 24 . (B+G) (E+J) (H+C)
W001 49. (G+D) (A+F) (A+H)
The listing coordinates given are for parking where you can park for 1 - 3 hours for free, providing you display a ticket.