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Tolkien Trail (VirtualBrum)
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Tolkien Weekend 2005
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein,
South Africa, on 3 January 1892. Both his parents were Birmingham people but had
left their native city to seek a new life in South Africa. His father worked as
a bank clerk.
9 Ashfield Road
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Three years later, Mabel Tolkien took her two sons, Ronald and
Hilary, back to Birmingham to see their grandparents for the first time. It was
at the home of the grandparents, at 9 Ashfield Road in Kings Heath, that Mabel
Tolkien received a telegram announcing the tragic news that her husband had
suffered a severe haemorrhage and was dead.
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With no reason to return to South Africa, Mabel and her sons
settled in Birmingham, in the small hamlet of Sarehole.
264 Wake Green Road
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Tolkien often said that the happiest years of his childhood were those he spent
in Sarehole. His mother moved there shortly after the house was built in 1896,
when it was known as 5 Gracewell. The tiny village of Sarehole is said to have
been the model for The Shire, the home of the hobbits.
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| Sarehole Mill |
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The most exciting thing for a young boy to see in the village
was Sarehole Mill in Cole Bank Road, Hall Green. It is still there today and
proclaims itself as Birmingham's only surviving watermill. Ronald and his brother spent many an hour
investigating the mill and being chased off by the miller's son, whom they
nicknamed the "White Ogre". There had been a mill on this
stretch of the River Cole since the Middle Ages, though the present
buildings date from 1768. |
When the mill fell into decay, Tolkien contributed to
the fund to preserve it. It is now run as a museum by Birmingham City
Museums. The mill is open from daily, 2 - 5pm, late April to
October. Entrance is free
>Visit bmag Website |
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King Edward's School
Moseley Bog
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Once Ronald had entered King Edward's School in Birmingham, it was necessary for
the family to move closer to a tram-route to town. His rural idyll was over, but
his memories of it coloured much of his later writing. In later life, Tolkien often lamented the encroachment of
civilisation, with its trams and houses and motor cars, upon his former home in
the countryside. But there was one place that civilisation missed, the
mysterious world of Moseley Bog.
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| The pond dates from the 16th
century and was once used as an emergency supply of water for nearby
Sarehole Mill - a wise precaution in the circumstances, as the narrow,
sluggish River Cole doesn't really look capable of pushing a mill wheel.
Tolkien and his brother, Hillary, were regularly chased
away by the miller, George Andrew. Covered in white dust as he was, he
became known to them as the White Ogre - an unlikely antecedent for the
wizard Gandalf.
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The bog's nine hectares of
dense, damp woodland are widely understood to be the inspiration for the
Old Forest, home of Tom Bombadil. As one of the Hobbits observes in The
Fellowship of the Ring: "They do say the trees can actually move, and
can surround strangers and hem them in." But he does concede that
this phenomenon is more likely to happen after dark.
The Bog is now preserved as a Nature Reserve by
Birmingham City Council.
 More
photographs
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| After leaving Sarehole, the family lived briefly at 214
Alcester Road, near Moseley village. It was once a fire-station. |
St Anne's Catholic Church
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Around the time that Tolkien entered King
Edward's School, Mabel Tolkien and her sister May Incledon turned to
Catholicism. This caused much opposition from their relations who were
ardent Baptists.
It was to St Anne's Catholic Church in Alcester Street that she
and her sons traveled to worship, from their home in Moseley. The church
was a new one, having been built in 1884 to replace Cardinal Newman's
original chapel. Tolkien was to remain a catholic for the rest of his
life, the faith he associated so strongly with his mother.
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86 Westfield Road
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After Moseley the family returned to Kings Heath and lived at 86 Westfield Road.
But they were soon on the move again to a house in Oliver Road, now demolished.
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To save money Mabel moved her two boys to the nearby St
Philips's Grammar School. However Ronald Tolkien was to resume his studies at
King Edward's the following year after winning a Foundation Scholarship.
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Adapted from a leaflet, The Tolkien Discovery Trail,
now out of print, written by Chris Upton
and published by Birmingham City Council in 1992.
All colour photographs on this page taken August 2001 copyright www.virtualbrum.co.uk
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