Middle-earth Journeys

Marbretherese, Jonick and I finally managed to get to Sarehole Mill near Birmingham yesterday, for the second day of the annual Middle-Earth weekend. This year it was celebrating its tenth anniversary but the fact that we were ill-equipped newbies was apparent the minute we arrived at the car park - a large field - and saw the churned up mud and people in wellies. We knew rain was forecast, it had rained during most of the journey up to Birmingham and it had rained all the night before but mysteriously Marbretherese, Jonick and I had all decided to wear namby-pamby trainers and not very waterproof shoes. We picked our way out of the car park trying to avoid the mud. By the time we returned at the end of the day with soaked muddy shoes, soaked socks, soaked coats, flat wet hair and soggy bags I didn’t care if I fell face down in a cow pat. There is a point beyond which there is nothing more the elements can throw at you to make you look more awful than you already do.

But we knew it was all going to be worth it. If the Fellowship can fight their way half-way up Caradhras surely we can amble our way around a few soggy fields?

As part of the weekend, the organisers were putting on bus trips to all the Tolkien related sites in the area so we booked ourselves straight on one as it was going to leave not long after we arrived. Plus, we would be dry. Ironically it didn’t rain for the entire time we were on the bus. The sun even came out. It only started to pour again when we got back and headed out for the fields again. I’m sure someone up there is laughing. Perhaps it’s Goldberry.

Just to save paragraphs of explanation, there are details about the places around Sarehole and the Birmingham area associated with Tolkien, here:

Birmingham City Council

and here:

Tolkien's Birmingham in pictures


Before getting on the bus we had a quick look around the various things on offer in the field (Crafts! Weaving! Medieval Forges! Farmers Market! Live Music! Viking Re-enactments! An eeny-weeny tent where the RSPB were hiding from the weather!). We wandered into the first Very Big Tent and signed up to help save Moseley Bog (where Tolkien and Hilary often played in the sandpit). Losing Marbretherese and Jonick for a moment, I got waylaid near the local natural history table where a very enthusiastic young man was trying to tell me (against my will and even though I was walking sideways) about how volunteers were helping with a Garden Worm Survey. But before I could get signed up as a Worm Spotter I caught sight of M and J lurking near some display boards and made a run for it.


Time to head for the tour and we found ourselves on a glorious 1950’s Birmingham bus with a conductor in full 1950’s fig. We had a guide pointing everything out to us and she was full of interesting information, not only about Tolkien’s childhood in the area, but about the area itself and its history. As soon as we started off and turned a corner we were passing Tolkien’s childhood home at 264 Wake Green Road where he first lived with his mother and Hilary between 1896 and 1900. I’d never realised how close it was to Sarehole Mill. No wonder the boys were always around there, being chased off by the Miller (who they called the White Ogre). We headed out of Sarehole (which was completely rural when Tolkien lived there but now, like everything else in the area, is a suburb of Birmingham - much to Tolkien’s distress) and headed for Moseley and Edgebaston. On the way we passed (but didn’t get much chance to really see) the Oratory which is associated with Cardinal Newman and which is were Mable attended church with the two boys (also where they got to know the boys’ guardian, Father Francis Xavier Morgan). Apparently it’s beautiful inside so I think that’s one for another trip! We then wound our way to Perrott's Folly and the Edgebaston Victorian water tower – which have become known as the ‘Two Towers’. What I hadn’t appreciated before seeing it was how very close Tolkien was to them, after his mother’s death, when he lived briefly with his aunt in Stirling Road. They are both just at the far end of the road and must have loomed as large over his imagination as they did over the house. Seeing the location for real reinforces the connection – no wonder he was always writing about great towers!


On the way back we passed the pub (can’t remember the name) where Tolkien stayed for one night with Edith before he left for France. Apparently there is a blue plaque marking the room. What Tolkien would have made of that can only be imagined!

When we arrived back at Sarehole we had a cup of tea and cake (of course – what would these jaunts be without cake. You all know by now that we can’t pass a tearoom.) and had a look around Sarehole Mill itself:


It’s a lovely, rambling brick building and Tolkien contributed to its restoration fund. I can quite see why the miller wouldn’t let him run around there, it’s full of cogs, wheels, rushing water, trapdoors, ropes and chains. The waterwheel is still working along with some of the machinery – it’s thrilling to see it all going around - and it backs on to the most beautiful millpond. What an idyllic place to grow up near – the happiest years of his youth, as he called them. Pity we couldn’t linger by the mill pond because the ‘grey rain curtain’ had come down again causing Serious Photography Problems. I bet it’s terrific on a sunny day .

The Tolkien Society had set up its trading tables at the Mill exit and it was packed with people trying to get out of the rain and steaming gently over the books, posters and assorted Hobbity stuff. We were in there ages while I tried not to get transfixed by every photo of Aragorn ….er …Viggo.


When the rain seemed to let up a bit we waded into the field to have a look at all the stalls and other fun stuff that was going on. The heavens opened again. Worms were coming to the surface all over the place and I wondered whether I should do a bit of spotting and report back to the natural history tent. There were wet Vikings standing around re-enacting standing around in a wet field (I bet Vikings did more of that than running around hacking peasants so I was pretty impressed). Amazingly, there were a HUGE number of visitors despite the weather – nothing can dampen the spirits of the British when there is a muddy field to tramp over! Parents were watching kids running around with cloaks and bow and arrows (spawn of Legolas). There were other kids scrambling over a climbing wall called ‘Cirith Ungol’ which had a home-made giant spider at the top (spawn of Shelob), someone dressed as an orc was wading about in a stream (spawn of Mordor). There was spawning all over the place. We decided it was time to eat (again) and while M and J headed for a samosa stand I spotted a big van with organically-reared-open-range-pork-sausages-in-a-bun. I was so wet that a samosa just wouldn’t cut the mustard. I wanted meat and a lot of it.


As soon as I got my eager hands on my organically-reared-open-range-but-ends-up-as-a-sausage-in-a-bap-anyway sandwich the heavens opened into a deluge and flooded my sausages. The two-sausage-bap being too big to cram into my mouth all in one go I scanned the horizon for shelter and for Marbretherese and Jonick, who I could dimly see through the hammering rain sheltering under the canopy fringe of a crystal and rock stall (along with a gazillion other people). Mysteriously, they had already eaten their samosas, which I never even saw. I think they must have done a Mippen and swallowed them whole as soon as the deluge got worse. So I chomped through my sausages on my own while we admired the crystals at seriously close range. By the time the rain let up we’d been charged by so many different kinds of crystal energy – calming, energising, soothing, invigorating, enlightening and healing that I had a Chakra Overload and nearly bought a very dear log of petrified wood. Actually, I, wish I had bought it as it was rather beautiful, but with your Chakra’s all over the place it’s impossible to think clearly.

After a bit more of a mooch around various tents and activities the weather eased off and we thought we’d go and take a look at Moseley Bog and see where the two bothers had had so much childhood fun. After all, how much more boggy could it be than the bog we’d already been walking around in? We headed off and I put my hood down. As soon as I did so it started raining again. So we took another detour into the Mill Teashop for tea and biscuits. This was Third Lunch and we getting more like Mippen by the moment. Fortified by tea we started out again and headed once more for the bog – this took us past 264 Wake Green Road again, where we tried to inconspicuously lurk and take a photo. The owner was in her front room by the window (on Wet Hobbit watch I think) so we scuttled away - still in an inconspicuous manner – while Jonick helpfully suggested that Marbretherese and I had mini spy cameras inserted in appropriate headgear for such occasions. Brilliant.


The rain seemed to have stopped (again) so I put my hood down. As soon as I did it started (again).

We finally found the bog after a bit of a walk and I have to say that (in sunlight) I bet the place is magical. It has several natural springs and has its own ecosystem, full of plants and insects that love bogs, and is so densely treed, with fallen logs, a stream and ponds that it must have been wonderful to play in. Tolkien’s boyish imagination must have been fired up by it and if it hasn’t given some shape to Mirkwood or the Old Forest I’ll eat my waterproof. Unfortunately the visitors’ paths that have been made through it were just thick mud and, although we made some sorties, it was clear that this is something that has to be done on a good day. Bob Blackham does a tour through it so may be another year we’ll go in better weather and learn all about it.

As we arrived back at the field the rain seemed to have stopped so I put my hood down and… well you can guess. Now it was all becoming clear. Somehow, due to some great cosmic mistake, the weather had become connected to my hood and I had some sort of Valar-like power over it. Maybe it was the crystals.


We took one last turn about the field. The enacting Vikings were still standing in their soggy woolly clothes. Kids were still trying to reach Shelob. We bought some seriously good Falafels so we didn’t starve when we got home (Fourth Lunch) and headed back through the mud to the car.

Do you know what? Despite the rain we had a FANTASTIC day out .

Determined to enjoy our visit to the West Midlands despite the rain, I’d dressed as though I was on holiday in Ireland, but it was even wetter! Relief at having found the Mill (cunningly buried in the leafy suburb of Hall Green about five miles from Birmingham city centre) gave way to amazement at the huge puddles everywhere. The sight of Two Trees at the entrance cheered me up, however:
Squelching our way across the mud in our Unsuitable Shoes, we discovered a large field behind the Mill where a selection of Middle-Earth types (ranging from Warriors to Hobbits) were variously practicing their crafts or wandering about frightening the children:
One particular stall caught my eye; a little boy was earnestly telling the stallholder that “Aragorn uses a sword but Legolas has a bow and arrows”. Legolas would have been right at home here; I was half expecting him to step out from behind one of the tents . . .
I was thrilled that the Bus Tour was going to be on a Real Bus - it took me right back to my childhood. We nabbed seats on the top deck and I got my camera and notebook and pen ready (if you’ve ever tried to juggle a camera, notebook and pen while riding a bus you’ll know how over-ambitious I was). We’d barely got to the first corner when a parade of shops caught my eye:
As we turned into Wake Green Road I readied the camera and managed to take a photo of entirely the wrong house. I can tell you that when Tolkien lived there they were known as Gracewell Cottages, and that he lived there from 1896 to 1900 or so. At that time it must have been idyllic with the Mill at the front and Moseley Bog behind . . . as we continued down the road I carried on not getting the photos I wanted. We passed the end of Cotton Lane, where the Suffields lived (out of focus), and further down joined the route Tolkien would have known when he caught the steam tram from his next home in Moseley to King Edwards School. Along Highfield Road, where a blue plaque decorates the house where Tolkien lived after Fr. Morgan put a stop to his friendship with Edith, I got so over-excited that I missed it completely and took a shot of the roof of the bus.

The sun came out as we reached the Two Towers. I was struck by their resemblance to some of Tolkien’s drawings - like his towers they are made of brick - the water tower was right opposite the end of Stirling Road where Tolkien lived with his Aunt Beatrice around 1905, just after his mother died. In the house opposite Tolkien’s Aunt lived the widow of Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee, whose name lived on in the local term for cotton wool - Gamgee tissue - and of course, in LotR. I dashed off and managed to take a photo of the wrong house again, but luckily the bus took us past the right one - here it is:
I didn’t manage to get a pic of the Oratory, either, or the pub where Edith and Tolkien stayed (I think it was called the Plough and Harrow). Although I was failing to take pictures, I was really struck by how close by Tolkien’s family had been: Suffields round the corner, Tolkiens up Church Road . . . It’s one thing to read about these places but quite another to see them. In Tolkien’s day they would have been quiet villages slowly being swallowed up by the city - now they are affluent suburbs. Our guide told us that the bus route we were taking was the same one Tolkien used; apparently he wrote the poem Little Princess Me on the bus from Moseley to Edgbaston in July 1915!

Back at the Mill we avoided the rain by having a good look round inside. I felt quite intrepid as I scaled ladders and dangled over the mill wheel. There was a lot of information about how the Mill worked but I was far more interested in photographing bits of machinery:
The people who run the Mill have struck just the right balance of general watermill and specific Tolkien info so the whole thing is of interest whether you are a Tolkien fan or not. To my delight in one corner we found an exhibition of Pamela Chandler’s Tolkien photos - she was commissioned to take them in the early 1960s. Tolkien hated having his photo taken but he and Edith hit it off with Pamela, to the extent that whenever he was asked for a photo after that he told people to use one of hers! You could see how the photoshoot started off quite formally and became more relaxed:
Downstairs again, while Iolanthe was catching up at the Tolkien Society stall and Jonick was eyeing up the many books on sale (of course!), a striking display of Tolkien related books by the Hall Green Library caught my eye:
The rain was coming down even more heavily now; we headed gamely to the field where some folorn looking fellows in cloaks were giving donkey rides to some very wet children. The promised display of Morris Dancing had (unsurprisingly) failed to materialise and the Viking Display seemed remarkably absent too. So did the Birds of Prey . . . There was music coming from the Ents tent, however, and the more sensible Middle-Earthers were under canvas, either doing Activities in the Activities tent or looking at some of the crafts on display:
Having come so far we were determined to at least locate Moseley Bog, damp and chilled though we were. It is effectively just behind where Tolkien used to live at Gracewell Cottages. In fact, there is a brook running through the bog which joins the river Cole just by the Mill, running in a straight line very close to the cottages and right alongside the Party Field. No wonder everything was so soggy - every time I put my foot down a puddle formed around it! We made our way through a housing estate and found the entrance to the Moseley Bog Nature Reserve - here’s the proof:
It was incredibly muddy. Even the walkways were slippery and I decided I’d had enough Intrepid for one day. Jonick and Iolanthe braved them while I wandered off in the other direction. Even in the rain it was Completely Fabulous and I could see why the Tolkien brothers spent so much time there. I found bluebells (where, I wondered, was Luthien?), and even an Entwife:
We’d pretty much exhausted all the day had to offer so we began to think about going home. In the Party Field wet children were still climbing Cirith Ungol, enjoying the swings, or brandishing wooden swords at each other while the adults bought provisions at Hobbiton Farmers Market. Even the rain couldn’t dampen our spirits . . . no wonder people think the English are mad!! We are so going back . . . . .

I've just read through this the second time to make sure I didn't miss anything and I'm still laughing out loud! It's wonderful to read about what goes on at these events and to see the pictures, but I think you could write about an hour in a dentist's waiting room and make it entertaining!

Tolkien's old home looks quite nice; I had gotten the impression that they had lived in genteel poverty during his boyhood. So I'm imagining that these places have been fixed up, probably a few times, since his childhood. And is the mill just a tourist place now, or do they actually 'mill' anything?

Edited to say: I was typing this as you posted your account and pictures, marbretherese. I was wanting more pictures of the Crafts, so thank you. You were certainly Intrepid! And I love the Entwife.

Marbretherese, I love the last photo where everyone is STILL cowering around the fringes of the crystal and rock tent . I bet they never had so many visitors....

I'm glad you enjoyed it Merry . Thank goodness, it was a LOT more interesting than a Dentists waiting room . I think the houses where Tolkien lived were probably just as nice in Tolkien's time (though maybe not so freshly painted), just modest and not what Mable was used to.

The Mill isn't producing flour any more, but the waterwheel is working and it is moving the mill stone even though it isn't grinding. So - yes - it is just for tourists. I was fascinated by it!

Here is another photo inside:
Marbrethere was sitting on the better side of the bus for Tolkien sites - between us we decided to cover both sides - so she had more opportunity to miss getting photos than I did . On the way back I was on the right side for what used to be Gracewell Cottages and also entirely failed to get the right house! Just as well we walked past it later!

Finally, here is a clearer photo of Perrott's Folly without the bus:

One can see how a boy's imagination would be fed by such a structure. I don't think we have 'follies' such as this over here stateside, but they are kind of garden structures built for no particular purpose, right?

Yes, that's right. They are usually highly imaginative, sometimes classical, sometimes not, and serve no real practical purpose!

Just for good measure, here are my photos of the two Towers. I really liked the waterworks tower: apparently it's derelict inside but there are moves to restore it. As you can see, it's terrifically ornate, and looks a bit ike a church - the result of Victorian civic pride!

Ladies, ladies, what a wonderful, thoroughly soggy adventure! I have laughed and laughed at your accounts. Here's to worm spotting, Chakra Overload, soggy shoes, camera-pen-and-notebook juggling (isn't that an Olympic sport?), Valar-powered hoods, tea and cake, charming Entwives, organically-reared-open-range-pork-sausages-in-a-bun, idle Vikings, impenetrable bogs, spawn of everything possible, photographing all the wrong houses, and first, second, third, and fourth luncheons!

May we all be blessed with outings such as this!

We know how to enjoy ourselves .

I think we'll be up there again in the future and hoping for better weather. Considering the downpour it's amazing what a good day it was. Looking properly through the 'What's On' brochure I see that there are a lot more organised walks that would be fun to do (including a local prehistory one ), that we missed the Morris Dancers who were only there on Saturday (no wonder we didn't see them ) and, supposedly, acted out scenes from LotR in Mosely Bog. These should have been taking place while we were there so I guess they decided it was crazy .

I hadn't realised that the Morris Dancers were there on the Saturday only. I bet they were feeling smug on Sunday . . . I never did spot the Birds of Prey though

Bob Blackham was wandering about in a long black cloak and several Middle-Earthers were striding along purposefully in walking boots so I suspect some of the walks took place even if the staged LoTR scenes didn't. Although they could easily have recreated the boat journey along the Anduin in the car park, never mind in the Bog

Lindariel, I hope you are blessed with drier days out than our one - I'm taking wellies next time!!

Iolanthe and marbretherese, after reading your delightful reports (yet again), I am convinced that there is a paying audience eager to enjoy your adventures if you ever decide to take the time to gather all this and write in a book...

Don't tempt us - we wouldn't want to out-sell Lord of the Rings .

Jonick and I were back in the area on Sunday when we attended the beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman, which was of course carried out by his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. It was a very special day and we both feel privileged to have been there.
Yesterday the Daily Telegraph published an online article entitled Pope Visit: relics, ritual and rain in Middle Earth . The article mentions Tolkien, but of course there's a great deal more which could have been said about the link between Tolkien and Newman.
Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory where Tolkien attended St Philip's School, and Fr Francis Morgan had at one time been his confessor. When Mabel was looking for somewhere to live with her sons, Fr Francis found her a little cottage on the estate of the modest country house which Newman had built as a retreat for the Oratory clergy. Newman's spirit and values would have been very much a part of Tolkien's Catholic education. When she died, Mabel was buried at Rednal in the same churchyard as Newman.

If anyone is interested in seeing more photos of the beatification, PM me and I'll send you a link to my web album.

I'd love to see and read more about this, marbretherese--thanks! I didn't know any of the connections between Tolkien and Newman, other than the fact that Newman would have been a big influence on his Catholicism in a general way.

I'll PM you!

Thanks Marbretherese. It's nice to see at least part of the Tolkien connection acknowledged in the article. I wonder what Tolkien would have made of the size of the event. I bet he would have been rather surprised.

Being in this thread again reminds me that one year we'll have to 'do' Sarehole again!