Distance: 3.1 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk from Coseley Railway Station via the Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve, famed for its Wenlock Limestone, rich fossil record, mining heritage and spectacular views, to Dudley town centre.

The Story

Route Notes

Getting Back

Shattered Remnants of a 400 Million Year Old Ocean

One of the UK’s oldest National Nature Reserves (NNR) is situated just north of Dudley town centre.

Wren’s Nest first designated an NNR in 1956, and since extended in area, most recently in 2020, is the remains of a limestone ridge, like a mini Wenlock Edge (it is the same kind of limestone), shattered by millions of years of weathering and centuries of quarry working.

Wren’s Nest was last quarried for limestone a century ago in 1925 and stood abandoned for a generation prior to the NNR designation and its transformation into a wilderness like park.

At the time of its designation as an NNR Wren’s Nest was unique in the UK as having been recognised as significant and worthy of official recognition and protection due to its geology. 

The limestone that comprises Wren’s Nest is the remains of a tropical sea that covered what is now the Black Country over 400 million years ago. The remains of the corals and other forms of sea life which lived in that sea layered and compressed over hundreds of millions of years are what form the Black Country’s coal measures at the limestone at Wren’s Nest alike.

As keen fossil hunters sometimes say “at Wren’s Nest every rock contains a fossil”. Hyperbole perhaps, but a broad indication of how well preserved and numerous ancient sealife’s remnants are at the site. 

During the 19th Century when a broad modern understanding of fossils as the remnants of creatures tens or hundreds of millions years old, preserved in rock form, was first established by proto-paleontologists, a craze for the remains took hold of the general public. During these years Dudley, like Lyme Regis in Dorset on the county’s Jurassic Coast became an epicentre for fossil collectors. Tourists flocking to the town to see the historic castle, view the limestone caverns beneath the castle, and to see what fossils they could purchase from the fossil dealers in the town centre.

These shops were fed by the local quarry workers and miners who would discover fossils, especially the famous “Dudley Bug” which was a special hit with the tourists, and take them to the dealers. Doubtless this cash-in-hand trade helped to keep the town’s pubs and illicit bookies in trade, while also covering school fees, medical expenses and home improvements which would otherwise have gone unmet.  

Hundreds of million of year old fossils and the beguiling natural beauty of Wren’s Nest amidst a suburban landscape aside, the remains of limestone quarrying within the site are also fascinating. Many of the exposed limestone faces were shaped by the deonations and picks of quarry workers, which gives parts of the landscape a shattered, almost other world feel. Albeit one which was shaped by centuries of human activity. At peak during the mid-19th Century 20,000 tons of limestone was being extracted from Wren’s Nest every year.

Beneath the site and dug into the exposed limestone faces there are numerous caverns. Some of these are entirely naturally occurring, the action of millions of years of rainfall working their way through weaknesses in the soft, porous limestone rock. Others predate human intervention but were chibbled at and augmented during the years that Wren’s Nest was actively quarried for limestone. While other caverns are entirely the result of limestone mining over the centuries.

The most spectacular and significant limestone mining complex which extends beyond Wren’s Nest as far as Dudley Castle, is the Seven Sisters Mine. This deep level effort to extract limestone was at its peak in the 18th Century when metalworking processes involving limestone boomed in the Dudley area. During this time the construction of the Dudley Canal Tunnel was augmented by undergrounding limestone mining efforts which utilised wharfs deep beneath the Dudley hills to remove the quarried stones.

Smithing, forging and ironworking had long been a key local trade, for centuries and possibly millenia prior to the industrial revolution, aided by the abundance of easily accessible raw materials for the craft. Interestingly Abraham Darby who constructed the world’s first successful blast furnace at Coalbrookdale in the Shropshire Severn Gorge in 1709 is known to have been born in a farmhouse in the Wren’s Nest site in 1678.

In recent years the remains of the Seven Sisters Mine have been blocked off, partly to preserve them, partly because they are incredibly dangerous. A major cave-in in 2001 led to some of the galleries being backfilled with rubble because this was the best way to preserve them from further damage. Since then Dudley Council has had the aspiration to open the incredible complex as a heritage site, however, funding is scarce and the bill would probably run to tens of millions of pounds, so despite some small grants to surveys, feasibility studies and basic maintenance, the day that this will be possible currently seems very distant. Should it ever be possible to open the mine to visitors and to better tell the story of the extraordinary efforts Dudley people went to in centuries past the quarry limestone from the site, then it will add a further rich spectacular chapter to the story of Wren’s Nest which already stretches back hundreds of millions of years.

Route Notes

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

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This walk from Coseley to Dudley town centre via the Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve, famed for its Wenlock limestone gorges, rich fossil record, and vivid industrial history, begins from Coseley Railway Station.

Upon exiting the station turn right heading along a main road towards Coseley town centre. Along the way you cross a side road named for St. Kenelm the beheaded (almost certainly entirely mythical) boy king of Mercia associated with the Clent Hills and the source of the River Stour.

Following the Coseley town centre bypass you skirt the high street. There are some good views to the left across the hilly, green, suburban landscape of Dudley to your left.

At the bottom of Coseley High Street cross the busy A4123, Wolverhampton Road, which runs up the western flank of the Black Country from Birmingham.

On the far side of the road strike out into suburbia passing Coseley Park. Ahead of you the wooded slopes of Mons Hill, the northern part of the Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve rise up in front of you.

Presently you cross the A457 which runs from Tipton to Sedgley. On the far side of the road you cross a small brook opposite an unusual, old, electricity substation which looks like a chapel.

Soon you reach some woodland which is situated at the northernmost extent of the Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve site.

Clambering over a stile to your left you enter the site, and turn right amidst the undergrowth, before beginning to climb Mons Hill.

As you climb Mons Hill, soon reaching a wider well maintained footpath, there are great views down a naturally occurring, heavily overgrown limestone ravine to your left, as well as views across the hilly landscape of Dudley to your right.

At the top of Mons Hill you reach a road next to the Dudley Bar and Grill curry pub. Behind which stands Wenlock School, named after the kind of limestone it sits upon.

On the far side of the road you pass a tall, slanted limestone cliff, mottled by exposure to the elements.

Passing this cliff you soon come to one of the former quarries where great jagged chunks of limestone erupt from the hillside where natural gullies were hacked at and worked by limestone quarries over the course of centuries.

Turning right and working your way across the shattered landscape you come to a flight of steps which enables you to ascend to a still intact chunk of the ridge. 

At the top there is a spectacular view to the west across the old quarry workings and into suburban Dudley beyond.

Heading right along a wide well worn path you continue along the ridge, passing great cliff faces of exposed limestone and old quarry workings.

Presently quite high up a spectacular vista of Dudley Castle, the distant Rowley and Clent Hills, as well as central Birmingham over ten miles to the south east opens up.

Here you descend a steep set of steps and begin making your way to the southern end of the Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve where you pick up a snicket leading out onto an inter-war vintage council housing estate.

From here make your way to the A459 which runs all the way to Dudley town centre which sits in the shadow of the atmospheric ruins of Dudley Castle.

This walk ends at either the square outside the Council House where buses can be caught back to Birmingham. Or once complete at the town’s bus station and Metro stop on the other side of the High Street.

Getting Back

Dudley town centre is well served by numerous buses to Birmingham, as well as buses to other West Midlands centres like Wolverhampton, West Bromwich (which has connections to the Midlands Metro) and other Black Country towns in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and beyond. All being well Dudley will soon have a Midlands Metro connection of its own. This’ll call at the Bus Station, however, the completion date for this is currently uncertain. Likely 2025 or 2026. Once operational this’ll offer services to Birmingham and Wolverhampton via Wednesbury, as well as calling at Tipton where there is a mainline railway station.