Pype Hayes Park is one of the larger parks in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, England. The park is in

Erdington Erdington is a suburb and ward of Birmingham in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Warwickshire and located northeast of central Birmingham, bordering Sutton Coldfield. It was also a council constituency, managed by its o ...

Constituency and straddles the boundary between

Pype Hayes Pype Hayes is a modern housing estate area in the east of the Erdington district of Birmingham. It is within the Tyburn ward. Covering the postcodes of B24 and B76. Etymology The name of the area derives from a major landowner in Erdington ca ...

and Erdington (now Tyburn ward. It covers B72 and B24. The northern boundary of the park is the traditional boundary between Erdington and Sutton Coldfield. Pype Hayes Park reaches from the corner where Eachelhurst Road joins Chester Road to a point close to Park Close off Chester Road and in places borders Pitts Farm estate. It also leads to Berwood Farm Road and Welwyndale Road. The main park entrance is on Chester Road and by that entrance is the lodge where the head gardener lives, like

Pype Hayes Hall Pype Hayes Hall is a former mansion house in the Pype Hayes area of Erdington, Birmingham, England. The hall's grounds now form Pype Hayes Park. It was formerly in the historic county of Warwickshire before being transferred into the new coun ...

this is a grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. To the left of the main drive to Pype Hayes Hall is a car parking area and further on towards Pype Hayes Hall is a children’s play area with swings and other attractions. Returning to the main drive one can get to the front entrance of Pype Hayes Hall and round there are gardens. The older gardens have a traditional layout with many fairly straight flower beds and dwarf yew hedges. To the north of the traditional garden is a modern garden planted for the

millennium A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...

. A fountain that was the centrepiece of this garden was vandalised and has been left unrepaired for several years. To the west of the gardens is a fish pond which is also a

duck pond A duck pond is a pond for ducks and other waterfowl. Duck ponds provide habitats for water fowl and other birds, who use the water to bathe in and drink. Typically, such ponds are round, oval or kidney-shaped. An example is the lily pond in th ...

with a duck island, many species of

water bird A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

s can be found there, notably

Mallard duck The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced species, introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Bra ...

Canada geese The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is o ...

and frequently a pair of resident mute swan. By the corner where Chester Road meets Eachelhurst Road is the area where the annual bonfire and

Funfair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

are held on 5 November, fairs are also held there at other times of the year. To the north of the section above is mown grass with young trees planted in groups and mature trees, later the land starts to slope downwards to a valley where

Plants Brook Plants Brook (originally Ebrook, Ebrooke''The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield - A Commemorative History'', Douglas V. Jones, 1994, Westwood Press () or East Brook

flows, the brook was culverted during the 1960s due to flooding. Many young trees have been planted in the flattish area round Plants Brook which is near the border of the park. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

single-storey

prefabricated building A prefabricated building, informally a prefab, is a building that is manufactured and constructed using prefabrication. It consists of factory-made components or units that are transported and assembled on-site to form the complete building. Hist ...

s were built round the park between Chester Road and Eachelhurst Road; each

prefab Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

had a small garden to the front and another small garden to the rear. Several decades later these homes were removed, giving a better view of the park and the Manor house but if visitors to the park look closely there is still a level area where the prefabs once stood. During the 1990s there was a problem with travellers who parked caravans without permission, but this was prevented by erecting metal railings round the part of the perimeter of the park where there are no houses, round the car park, along the main driveway, these railings separate areas where vehicles are permitted from areas where vehicles are not permitted. There are gates in these railings which are unlocked for permitted vehicles, for example when the funfair arrives.

External links

*
Pype Hayes Park, Erdington
{{Birmingham parks Geography of Birmingham, West Midlands Erdington History of Birmingham, West Midlands Parks and open spaces in Birmingham, West Midlands