Birmingham & Tolkien

[RiderOnTheStorm]

I have recently moved to Birmingham, and being a life long fan of Tolkien, I thought I might take my son & grandchild on a tour of the places he frequented and / or inspired him. I have seen the stuff online about how the structure of Isengard was based on the University of Birmingham, the Two Towers of Gondor were based on Edgbaston Waterworks tower and Perrott's Folly, and the Shire was inspired by Sarehole, etc. But I wanted to ask any locals or folk in the know, is there anything else that might be of interest to a LOTR fan? His fav pub? Where his friend lived? Where he sat and ate marmalade sandwiches before catching a train to Ashby? ..... or anything of that sort ;-) .... Preferable within environs of the city ..... thx in advance!

 

[belboid]

Favourite pub, the Plough & Harrow

Birmingham Tolkien Trail | Birmingham City Council

Birmingham City Council download - J.R.R. Tolkien | Things to do | Libraries | Archives and collections | Birmingham connection | J. R. R. Tolkien

www.birmingham.gov.uk

 

[Silas Loom]

I have recently moved to Birmingham, and being a life long fan of Tolkien, I thought I might take my son & grandchild on a tour of the places he frequented and / or inspired him. I have seen the stuff online about how the structure of Isengard was based on the University of Birmingham, the Two Towers of Gondor were based on Edgbaston Waterworks tower and Perrott's Folly, and the Shire was inspired by Sarehole, etc. But I wanted to ask any locals or folk in the know, is there anything else that might be of interest to a LOTR fan? His fav pub? Where his friend lived? Where he sat and ate marmalade sandwiches before catching a train to Ashby? ..... or anything of that sort ;-) .... Preferable within environs of the city ..... thx in advance!

Wait, what? I spent several years there, much of it in the company of fantasy fiction devotees, and never heard that once.

It sounds like the sort of thing that lots of tower owners in the West Mids would like to claim, and the university’s PR elves had a habit of making absurd claims about the really quite uninteresting clock tower, one of which being that students referred to it affectionately as “Old Joe”.

 

[A380]

Insert hordes of Orcs joke here.

 

[Pickman's model]

Insert hordes of Orcs joke here.

the met so rarely venture to the west midlands

 

[A380]

the met so rarely venture to the west midlands

WMP have that effect on most people.

 

[Maggot]

There's a blue plaque at his address in Edgbaston. I only know this cos it was a question on University Challenge last night.

 

[kebabking]

I think the Forest of Arden was supposed to be the template/inspiration for the Old Forest.

Worcestershire is all very Shire-like - particularly the bit from Bewdley-Bromyard-Worcester..

I read once that Clee, on the Bewdley to Ludlow road, was supposed to be the inspiration for Bree, and Clee hill, with it's neolithic burial mounds, the inspiration for Weather top.

 

[tim]

the met so rarely venture to the west midlands

That's because they know their place and respect the pecking order of constabulary corruption and criminality.

 

[blossie33]

It's only in the more recent years that Tolkien was recognised much more in Birmingham.

He was born in South Africa and returned to his mother's family home in Birmingham after his father died. He went to the King Edwards Grammar School in New Street which isn't there now and later he was at Oxford for many years and in his later years moved to Bournemouth so I guess he was rather forgotten by Brum until Lord of the Rings became such a big thing!

I don't know that much about places in Brum other than those you've already mentioned. My only very vague connection is that I met his great nephew Tim Tolkien a few times, he is a sculptor and used to come to do workshops at a gallery I worked at occasionally

 

[kebabking]

I met/dealt with Christopher Tolkien a couple of times - I found him to be a arrogant, condescending cunt.

 

[blossie33]

I met/dealt with Christopher Tolkien a couple of times - I found him to be a arrogant, condescending cunt.

Is he Tim's brother?
I didn't have a proper conversation with Tim but he seemed pleasant as far as I remember.

 

[petee]

if i weren't a new yawka, i'd have been a brummie.

 

[blossie33]

if i weren't a new yawka, i'd have been a brummie.

Brummies are the best

 

[kebabking]

Is he Tim's brother?
I didn't have a proper conversation with Tim but he seemed pleasant as far as I remember.

Nah, JRRT's son, and the closest to him in literature terms, and was his literary editor & executor.

 

[JimW]

Nah, JRRT's son, and the closest to him in literature terms, and was his literary editor & executor.

Published all those lore books that ended up being cobbled together from whatever scraps, notes and discarded shopping lists his dad didn't get round to chucking.

 

[kebabking]

Published all those lore books that ended up being cobbled together from whatever scraps, notes and discarded shopping lists his dad didn't get round to chucking.

Yeah, I've found all that stuff deeply unsatisfactory - pretty much unreadable. I got about ten pages into Children of Hurin and decided that I could live for a thousand years in a grey box with no human contact and life would still be too short to read any more of it...