The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Walsall, West Midlands*

Walsall, West Midlands Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• cut price news, just up from all the pubs, if u wanna start the night pissed or if u aint buyin those crappy 16 fags from yatess!
• The Social LMAO
• The Wharf Bar is pretty funky- won several awards.
• The Old Court House
• The town hall is very easily climbed due to the generous slots between its bricks. You should try it; theres a nice view from up there.
• got to be the imperial closley followed by the new bus station.
• Pelsall Social Club
• Tesco's what a glittering palace of delights!!!
• THE TOWER HOUSE ON SUTTON ROAD IS THE BEST LOOKING HOUSE IN WALSALL
• Some quite nice churches, and if you look above the shops there are some interesting features.
• What used to be Taylors music shop, opposite Tesco on The Bridge. Bas-relief carvings of musical instruments and composers.
• Marshalls flat
• St Matthews' - lovely place and friendly people The Vine - an alcohol free Christian pub on the fringe of Caldmore - lively youth in there
• Most the old buildings on Bridge street are pretty cool.
• E M Flint Art Gallery
• St Matthews Church, great potential, crapply presented.
• town hall
• THE OLD COUNTY COURT BUILDING - NOW A PUB/RESTAURANT CALLED "THE OLD COURT HOUSE"

Demolish It Now Building

• Royal Mail Delivery Office
• HARLEYS
• Baileys, its grab a weapon night every night
• macdonalds in the center of town ( its a breeding ground for nutters )
• The bus stop as well as that stupid statue of princess di!
• The old square shopping centre is hideous.
• The Wharf, its too damn arty farty
• Queen Mary's Grammar School - an establishment entrenched in the pursuit of mediocrity. Utterly loathed by anyone with a smattering of intelligence who had all inspiration quashed whilst incarcerated there. I'll happily contribute to it's demise....
• To be fair most of the town needs demolishing
• The bit that goes over the market from the Old Square!
• The Saddlers Center. I used to work there, and its crap anyway.
• the vaults full of loosers.
• The Varsity Public House
• The building I would like to see get demolished is probably the (is it a good idea to say this?) O.K the New Art Gallery. Knock it down. They knock everything else down. Why not knock down the entire town centre?
• THE COUNCIL'S OFFICES ARE AN EYESORE
• The new bus station - what were they thinking?
• Walsall telephone exchange. Ugly 60's edifice.
• Marshalls flat
• Tesco's : build a nice shiny new one like they have in the rest of the world!!
• Barr Beacon School!!!!!!!
• Tesco - Grannie and Grebo land.
• The new art gallery. What a dump, only a couple of months old but looks like a 60's tower block with a bit chopped off.
• All of beechdale
• Queen Mary's Grammar School - "tortured in the classrooms, hung up from the roof..." old boys : you know what I mean
• Harleys nightclub - with Scott Mills inside! Hurrah!
• Safeway - tatty 1980's legoland post modern style warehouse
• The sodding overstrand resteraunt. It would be a good view but for that.
• Walsall police station....from the sixties and it shows.
• mcdonalds
• The whole of Walsall, it needs re-building.
• The building that used to be George's pub should be knocked down as soon as possible. It's an eyesore. It was going to be made into a drive-through MacDonalds, but no sign of that yet.
• THE CIVIC CENTRE THE FORMER OVERSTRAND RESTAURANT
• Queen Mary's Grammar School.I was imprisoned there for the best part of seven deeply miserable years.Die,Q.M.,die.
• flats in pleck, concrete jungle, drug haven, pimp heaven

The Best Things

• when the qm schools have mixed A level parties and such like, but know that even if they're in year 10 they can always go to bar 2 seven if they cant get in anywhere else.
• the best thing in Walsall is that you know that wherever you go out of town , it's always 10 times better than Walsall.
• hmm.. the motorway isn't far so i can get outta here nowwww!
• Black pudding, shit beer, and interesting street scum
• Hostels for homeless teenagers
• Walsall has good potential
• Saddlers, beer(banks/highgate), friendkliness of people etc etc etc
• The New Art Gallery is a 50 million quid Lottery building right in the middle of Walsall. Very spartan looking, but not bad; at least its a public space which isn't trying to sell you stuff. Huge un-intended wind-tunnel effect near the entrance! Closed on Mondays all day, packed on Saturdays.
• Wellllll... it is Walsall, put it this way, its a lot better when your drunk
• The best thing about Walsall is once you've lived there, everywhere else is a nice place to be.
• Getting the hell out of the place at the end of a long day
• The fact that its improving - new things (mainly pubs) being built all the time!
• The Watering Trough used to be a good pub. Parties back at other folk's homes was a good laugh, we had to make our own fun as the apres pub scene in Walsall is a bit poo to be honest. Hallucinagen fuelled trips into the Arbo' in the middle of the night when the illumination stuff was out.
• Walsall has one of the best recording studios in the midlands though - Mad Hat Studios, all you have to do is ask acts who have already used it some reasonable local musical illuninaries such as Magnum, Jim Lea ( Slade), Robert Plant.
• lots of friendly people who know each other.
• what?
• The best thing about Walsall is probably the people. They are very friendly. The Scousers of the West Midlands I say!!
• Arboretum - a beatiful park in the town centre. New Art Gallery.
• Really friendly people - a real cultural mix. Try the Market on a Saturday
• The best chip shops in Britain!!! (from a well travelled gal)
• The mighty Saddlers Htpp://come.to/saddlers
• Walsall FC AKA the 'Mighty Saddlers' the only reason for staying in the Town. Well almost!!
• Prossies
• 3rd Walsall Sea Scouts, the best Sea Scout group in the world... offical!!
• The people I knew and the fun we had
• The way it used to be at the hippo! All night acid adventures in the arboretum when we were kids - man we had some crazy times Arboretum Grinding blocks by wharf Entertainment value - honestly, you just don't see that many freaks in one place anywhere else in this country The fun we had when we were kids
• I was born there, If i want I can speak so that no-one can understand me. The police are quite pleasant and It doesn't suffer from tourists getting in the way every summer
• the saddlers the people the arboretum the fact we are not brummies cheap curries its not cannock !
• THE PEOPLE THE WALSALL ILLUMINATIONS
• people are friendly, area is cheap to live, plain ordanary town. multicultural area which is cool. more help centres more for people to do.

The Worst Things

• Bloxwich and surrounding areas
• The crap people in Walsall
• Incredibly boring place for anyone with more than 1 braincell !
• Everything.
• when you're waiting 4 a taxi pissed out your tree at 3 on the morning and u suddenly get the smell of cabbage from the drains.
• Having southern t**ts asking if you come from Birmingham.
• Too many twats, too much fighting, lots of gangs between the little regions. Beechdale is the most messed up place full of racists.. Birchills is a doss hole for the young asian community (i live there.. ahem..). Prostitutes (that a bad thing? lol) pimps, druggies, subways on wolverhampton road full of crap and graffiti watch out for the "faz" tags everywhere (not me.. ahem.. lol)
• Another worst thing, Walsall's hospitals are the worst in Britain according to a recent survey. Oh yes, and the accent is much worse than Brummy. So there.
• BAILEYS. IT'S A BIT DARK IN THERE- Can't find my way to the bar.
• SKAG! We don't need this shit it's killing our generation!
• Snobbiness of some residents from the few and far between nice parts (streetley, aldridge), fighting(it's everywhere and anywhere) Mugging in places like Palfrey, the streets of boarded up houses in Blakenall, the desperation in areas like birchills, etc etc etc.
• The railway station is embedded in a shopping centre, but if you try to wheel a bike though the centre to get to the station, you get snotty security announcements over the tannoy shouted at you, 'cos they don't allow bikes (or boards) in the centre.
• Waiting for a bus thats half a hour late, or dson't even come!
• Having to work there; The neanderthals who inhabit the town at weekends;(for the benefit of the neanderthals this is a big word which you will never have heard before which roughly means the same as moron.
• The fact that there is very little to do!
• Skag problem. Drifts of litter all over the floor in every street. The drains stink in the Summer. Most of the thoroughfares are paved with chewing gum, which is a bit shabby. I still have to go back to visit my family. The population aren't really that friendly, except when the Saddlers win- then they are a bit too familiar.
• The road system and the amount of pedestrian crossings it takes to cross the road around the bridge street area!!
• to many loonies looking for a fight.
• most Of Walsall
• Most of Walsall's worst sights can be found at the UGLY Walsall website www.uglywalsall.myhome.org.uk
• The new Art Gallery - hideous on the outside, beautiful on the inside, full of crappy modern art - big blue squares painted by really talented artists - honest! Oh, and big blu-tack sculptures - didn't we all do those as kids?
• The cheap 'n nasty clothes bought for £1 from the saturday market
• ITs a bit dull and could do with a decent club.
• Its fulll of scubbers and pigeons. And there are quite a few Mingers!!
• Crap 377 bus service.
• The people! The town! CoalPool Bloxwich Just aBOUT ALL OF IT REALLY
• The place and the people Goscote, Beechdale, Bloxwich, Pleck etc. too many to list the average IQ (worryingly low) the accent - gross everyone fights - ALL THE TIME The "Hogg" and "D.L.Pennington" , anyone who went to Queen Marys knows those two bastards.
• while away I find myself breathing deeply of car exhaust fumes to remind me of home, can't be good! oh and the buses stop at 11pm or some stupid time.
• The litter.
• The accent, especially the Leamore and Goscote dialect. The women only know the following: *Smoke *Swear *Shag Walsall has the highest teenage pregnacy rates in the country, so there is a small probability of pulling a bird who has not got a kid.
• being asked if you are from poland being dubbed a brummie coming home after a year way and finding it all the same the woman are, i have to say, by and large pretty fat and ugly. with some notable exceptions
• Coming back
• THE M6 MOTORWAY THE ONE-WAY SYSTEM
• Pigeons, smelly, kind o' dirty...... can I stop now?
• town hall is full of people who couldnt run a town if they tried
• Walsall is a debauched plague pit that should be built over and forgotten.Or turned into a nice big park or something.
• new houses popping up on every spot of land available council cannot run the town, a lot of poor areas.....

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

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Credits

Last updated: 2008-07-03