Carole's retirement adventures

County: West Midlands

Name of High Point : Turners Hill 269m (883ft)

Date completed: August 22nd 2026

I decided it would be a good idea to add the West Midlands County high point to my journey home from the East Midlands road trip driving from Badby in Northamptonshire to the start of the walk at Warrens Hill Car Park in Dudley. Turners Hill forms part of the Rowley Hills and situated north of Rowley Regis next to a quarry. Dudley Golf Club is situated next to the top of the hill.

I decided to do a circular walk taking in Turners Hill, Bury Hill Park and Netherton Tunnel via the Birmingham Canal.

I parked in Warrens Hill Car Park and left by the main entrance, turning left to walk uphill along the road for a short while. I crossed the road and took the public footpath on the right just before a bus stop on the left.

This tarmac bridleway continued uphill past a fishing lake to the corner of a fenced paddock. It was a case of dodge the horse manure on the pathway as a riding school was at the top.

The path continued uphill to the right before eventually emerging through a barrier to the golf course. It wasn’t easy to navigate through the golf course so I took what I thought was the path in the right direction towards the transmitters at the top of Turners Hill.

I found my way to the clubhouse and the car park and then followed the lane up towards the transmitters. Unfortunately, the fenced off area and gate were as far as I could go. I definitely wasn’t going to try and breach this private land!!

Having settled for almost being on the highest point of the West Midlands I followed the path down to a road through some woods, crossing the road to a gap at the end of a wire fence. I followed the path and headed downhill in a SW direction. There were a lot of footpaths in this area and OS maps became my friend helping me to get to where I needed to be. Unfortunately, this area had obviously been damaged by fire recently so navigation was even harder than it needed to be.

I eventually reached a raised path before the car park of a motel and followed it down to the road to come out by a petrol station. At the road (A4123) I turned left and walked to the traffic lights to cross the road at the entrance to Bury Hill Park. I continued left to reach another petrol station and took the footpath to the right behind the garage to pick up Brades Rise on the left. I followed this road for around 330m to reach a T junction, turning left to the bridge over the canal at Waterways Drive. This was the most urban part of the walk.

I walked down to the canal and turned right under the bridge keeping the canal on my left. This is the Birmingham Canal and I continued along here for just over a mile to reach Tivedale Aqueduct which crosses over the Birmingham Canal. Unfortunately I saw a lot of litter in the canal but there were plenty of birds in there too including geese, mallards, coots and moorhens.

I walked down to the entrance of the Netherton tunnel, got out my head torch and walked as fast as I could through the two mile tunnel. I could see the light at the other end as it’s a straight tunnel. It was very dark in places and quite a lot of puddles and uneven ground underfoot. I was glad I had the torch to help me.

I was glad to get into the sunlight at the other end and made my way up the steps into Warren Halls Park and Cobbs Engine house, a relic from the industrial past of this area. A short walk through the park took me back to the car park.

The walk was an interesting one with a variation of urban, rural, canal, tunnel, nature reserve and history. There were views over Birmingham, the Clent hills and the Black Country but never too far away from the motorway! A total of 7.64 miles walked, 2 of those in a canal tunnel and another county high point ticked off