What is the project about?
Coalface to Wildspace, Midlands is an exciting project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the West Midlands Combined Authority. The project is focusing around neighbourhoods across Walsall from 2022 to the end of 2025.
There has previously been very little focus on reptile and amphibian conservation in this region, so this project will raise awareness through public engagement, improve habitat through community interventions, and bring attention to local natural and geological heritage.
See how you can get involved here!
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What are the aims?
We are working with local communities to improve habitats for reptiles, amphibians, and wider wildlife through the creation of Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors. These corridors are being created by working with people to build homes for wildlife in urban areas, with the aim of providing green stepping stones for nature between the larger green spaces across Walsall.
We also aim to educate community members about their local heritage, relating the history and geology of Walsall to the species that live here now as well as to the species that used to live here in the past.
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What are we doing?
We are running Wildlife Gardening Workshops with community members across Walsall. These workshops involve learning more about our native amphibians and reptiles, and how we can support them within our own gardens and greenspaces. During these workshops we also work together to create habitat improvements for wildlife, as part of our Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors that improve connectivity and habitat across Walsall for amphibians, reptiles and other wildlife.
Layers of Time
We have created an exciting 3D short film called Frogglebox, that explores local geological, natural, and social history and we are holding film screenings at local schools and community venues. The film focuses on the natural history and heritage present under the surface of the current visible landscape of Walsall and its connection to the wildlife that lives here now, particularly reptiles and amphibians. You can watch Frogglebox online here!
In summer 2023, we hosted a week of creative Froglife Brick Workshops in partnership with a professional brick artist from Bricks McGee. Community members created individual builds and designs out of LEGO® bricks to reflect the geological time periods shown within the film Frogglebox. Thank you to everyone who joined us for these sessions! These wonderful creations have now been transformed into inspiring displays by Infamous Arts.
These displays are now on show across Walsall, check out this page to find out where you can go see them!
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Speaking Sculptures
The final phase of the Coalface to Wildspace project involved the creation of spectacular wildlife themed Speaking Sculptures.
These sculptures were created through a series of fun community art workshops in partnership with professional artists from the Juneau Projects. During these workshops, community members worked together to design how the sculptures look and create clay animals and plants. These clay models were then cast into aluminium and painted to make lively designs at the heart of the sculptures. Finally, everyone worked together to create inspiring, nature focused soundscapes that can be accessed via QR codes.
To ensure that this amazing community artwork benefits both people and wildlife, 2 habitats are incorporated into each sculpture. This includes wonderful bird boxes made by the Caldmore Community Gardens Mens Shed.
These sculptures have been installed into 8 greenspaces around Walsall, to give the a lasting legacy to the Coalface to Wildspace project that people can enjoy in the future. Speaking Sculpture Celebration Festival activities are now being held at each site to celebrate these spectacular community made sculptures.
Reedswood Park Celebration Sculpture
The West Midlands Combined Authority Green Grants supported us to restore and create new ponds at Reedswood Park, transforming them into an amazing wetland mosaic. These ponds will now provide even better habitat for freshwater wildlife, including amphibians, and enhance the park for the whole community.
Now, thanks to funding and support from the Ironmongers Company we are working with the amazing sculptural artist Luke Perry to craft and install a steelwork sculpture in Reedswood Park. The design of the spectacular artwork has been directed through consultation with community members local to the park and will celebrate the ponds. We received some wonderful feedback and found that our Common Frog was the winning animal to be represented within the sculpture!
Keep an eye out for its appearance in the park in Autumn 2024.
Map
You can see our key sites marked in red and our additional community sites in blue, as well as our Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridor habitat interventions marked by snakes or ponds here:
Our Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors so far!
We have worked with a range of community groups across Walsall to create habitat enhancements and link up Walsall’s greenspaces. These groups have included allotments, schools, nurseries, and more.
Together, we have dug eight ponds in Walsall at Winterely Lane allotments, Ryecroft Community Hub, Old Church C of E Primary School, Slater Lane Allotments, Hucker Road Allotments, Bloxwich Primary Academy, Beechtree Road Allotments and Victoria Road Allotments. We have also created mini ponds, bog gardens, toad abodes and many other small habitats around Walsall.
You can see all of these interventions on the map above.
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Garden Guardians!
Why not contribute to your local Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridor by becoming a Garden Guardian?
There are lots of easy ways you can improve your own garden, balcony or community greenspace for wildlife! Why not plant some herbs on your windowsill to feed the bees, or create a mini pond in your garden to provide a haven for freshwater invertebrates? You can read more about easy habitat interventions in the Froglife Learning Zone or if you want to build a wildlife pond our “Just Add Water” booklet will teach you how.
Please add your habitat interventions onto our Neighbourhood Wildlife Corridors map by completing this form: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J73GRJ6
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How you can get involved
There are several ways you can get involved and help us to transform Walsall from Coalface to Wildspace. Why not become a garden guardian or attend one of our workshops or film screenings?
The details of our upcoming sessions are listed on the Froglife events page.
Happening soon:
Speaking Sculptures Celebration Festival:
We are running a series of free activities and events as part of a festival celebrating the installation of the spectacular Speaking Sculptures into parks and greenspaces across Walsall. Please come along and celebrate these community designed artworks and enjoy our amazing local nature:
- Saturday the 7th of September – Foraging Walk led by Alan Bale at Park Lime Pits LNR at 2pm
- Saturday the 21st of September – Arts and Crafts during Caldmore Community Garden Environment Day from 12pm to 4pm
- Saturday the 12th of October – Fungi Walk and Talk led by Lukas Large at Park Lime Pits starting at 10:30am
To be kept in the loop about upcoming project news and events, please don’t hesitate to contact our Project Manager Christina at Christina.Nijjar@froglife.org or subscribe to our mailing list.
With thanks to our funders and National Lottery players
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