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The Rising Brook

by Steph Spiers, Rising Brook Writers

Far away from public view hidden in high upland fields near the village of Hyde Lea, accessible only by a footpath off Bradley Lane, is the source of the Rising Brook. From here high above the salt-marsh plain the trickle of a stream tumbles down Hyde Lea bank at the rear of Stafford Grammar School’s playing fields to wriggle underneath the M6. It emerges into the daylight in a tree lined glen between Barnes Road and the Shannon Road estate.

Here it is crossed by its first bridge: a graffiti railed footbridge at the side of Highfield’s Club. A broken child’s buggy is wedged in its banks: a sad reminder of unsocial behaviour.

Wafts of tall nettles frame the surface water drains that trickle by trickle add to its volume. And on it goes.

And on it goes, babbling along at the edge of the Barnes Road football pitch until disappearing under West Way to shoot out between the Grove School playing field and the first patch of carefully tended allotments. Crossing under a dark lane the brook appears again, but briefly. So camouflaged with weeping elder flower bushes its tinkling waters are hardly noticeable before it slithers under the A449 by the traffic lights at Hyde Lea Turn to edge left along side the main block of allotments, before heading down hill again and picking up speed behind the bungalows in Brook Glen Road.

The playground at the end of Brook Glen Road abounded by the gardens of Reva Road is where sunlight glints on a faster wider brook before again it travels underground, buried underneath the railway lines.

And on it goes . . . a dog leg to the right and a bigger stronger brook spills out onto the scrub meadow land at the rear of Exeter Street estate. It has a voice now it has grown in volume and depth. No longer the friendly babbling trickle of the highlands. It is wide now, steeply banked and likely to spill its banks in flood. It has seen off many over the years who would dwell close on its banks, tolerated at their own peril and at their own risk of its deep and icy waters seeping, in the mid of winter, beyond its regular happy summer boundaries.

And on it goes . . . before it burrows again below ground to cross the busy Silkmore Lane heading for the flood plain of the River which it joins joyously in Rickerscote’s verdant pastureland having skirted the new housing development on the former concrete depot site.