Wren's Nest — Attraction in Dudley

Great scenic place to walk around and get some great photos. For the most part, it is nice and quiet and only occasionally see people walking around through the trees. The exception is where there are roads nearby, where the day I went, there was a tatter scrap truck driving around with its siren call on full blast, which ruins the whole experience. The most popular area would be the bright quarry where you'll find plenty of fossils. To walk around the whole reserve is quite the workout, and there are steps leading to different parts, but the steps can be very steep and hard to climb. As you continue down into the reserve, there are parts where it goes to its lowest point that doesn't get much sunlight, so the ground may be muddy, but it's very nice around here. The alternative to this is to climb the steps to the highest points where you'll be able to see for miles. Had not been here for many years, but it's relatively unchanged. The only real letdown (and biggest change) is the Seven Sisters Caverns (or caves). The council has blocked off and filled in all the caverns with fences and rocks. They have ruined a historical landmark. Like the fences should be enough to keep people out, but to fill in caverns is just out of order. There used to be cave exploration parties in the past, but now is just a thing of the past. What's funny is the caverns are fenced off, but if you walk around through the trees, there are many many spots where there are considerable drops into very deep ditches that are just out in the open and not fenced off at all. If you fall through some of these, you're going to get hurt badly. Just stick to the path though, and you'll be fine. As for the quarry with fossils, I last went here over 25 years ago, and it might have been my mind playing tricks on me, but if you don't like spiders, then don't walk around the quarry towards the evening, as I remember seeing all the rocks suddenly swarm with hundreds of tiny spiders. In the daytime, though, you probably won't see any. The whole area is well worth the visit, and feels like a different country away from the normal everyday...

The last time I visited here was 1965. With a group of friends we spent several evenings climbing the larger faces (now fenced off) and descended the Severn Sisters, rather steep and precarious leading down to around 300 feet to the canal tunnel.

What a wonderful place this is now, known then locally as The Wrenna! Restrictions for good reasons now, I climbing, no hammering of the rocks. But by picking up bits of limestone off the ground, is easy to find a wealth of fossils.

The area is now well looked after by volunteers. The best place to park and visit is next to the Caves Inn, but note the car park closes at 3.00 pm, and...

I lived and played in this area all my childhood it’s sad to see that the caves have been filled in but no one ever talks about the other caves on the reserve probably because they never even knew about them, there was the cave we called the cherry hole which was full of sand and then there was the cave behind the houses on meadow road, that was filled in when I was a kid but we still got access to it through a small entrance left after they filled it in, the cherry hole used to be accessed from where the new houses are now built on meadow road, this area was my playground and I learnt so much about nature from...