00:00 It's Ender Mullin here for Birmingham World. I'm in Elmton Park in Solihull which is, some
00:07 people will say, the jewel in the crown of Solihull's parks. It's certainly the largest,
00:12 it's the sort of park you can easily get lost in. You can spend all day wandering around
00:16 it and still not get to see every bit. It was originally an estate, a hall was built
00:22 here by the Spooner family which was finally finished at the end of the 18th century. Subsequently
00:30 the estate was sold earlier in the 20th century before the hall, Elmton Hall, was used by
00:38 the Home Guard during World War II. It later fell into disrepair and due to rotting parts
00:47 did have to be demolished but you can still see some traces of it. There's also a historic
00:51 church, St Nicholas here. Other than that you have all the regular park amenities. You've
00:57 got a children's play area, there's also adventure equipment, there's a lake. One of the most
01:03 wonderful things here is a splendid nature reserve that's run by the Warwickshire Wildlife
01:07 Trust and that goes right the way up to the edge of the old airport, Birmingham or Elmton
01:14 Airport as it was called. It's a really huge park as I said and a lovely place for walking,
01:20 dog walking, cycling, you name it really and suitable for exploring all year round really.
01:29 Although you're in this wonderful green oasis you're also never too far from the signs of
01:37 suburbia and industry. Perhaps most notably there you can just sort of see in the background
01:42 the huge Jaguar Land Rover load lane plant that runs 24 hours a day. But if you've never
01:50 been before it's well worth checking out and it's somewhere I'm sure you will come back
01:55 to again and again.
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