Route Developer: CW

[1] Before setting off, walk along the passageway to the left side of the reception building and look at Sarehole Mill. 

(A) This is the only surviving watermill of the sixty that once operated within the city boundaries. Its red brick building dates from the 1760s and houses two water wheels, used for blade grinding and corn milling until closure in 1919. Tolkien played here as a boy and contributed to the restoration fund as a man.

Back at the car park, turn left across it and cross the mill tail-race by a footbridge into a grassy area. Bear left around the end of the mill buildings and follow a ditch and metal fence along the left edge of the grassy area. The mill pond, just visible behind the metal fence, supplied the power that drove the water wheels. Continue ahead and emerge through a gate onto Wake Green Road, opposite Thirlmere Drive.

[2] At Wake Green Road glance right to the row of white gabled houses on the opposite side.

Tolkien lived here (at No 264) with his brother and mother from 1896 to 1900.

Cross Wake Green Road into Thirlmere Drive and walk through the housing estate. Turn second right into Pensby Close, keeping left as it forks, and at the end of this cul-de-sac, cross the grassy verge to the brook, which emerges from the forest edge, beside the railings.

This is Coldbath Brook, the original water source for Sarehole Mill, which runs underground from here to the mill pond.

[3] Ascend the earth bank ahead on a short flight of steps and enter the forest, taking the path on the right down over tree roots to Coldbath Brook.

(B) You are now in Moseley Bog which was a supplementary storage reservoir for the mill until the 1890s, when the earth bank was breached and the lake drained. The resulting boggy wetland, mingled with the remains of abandoned Victorian gardens, has been left undisturbed for a hundred years thanks to the local residents ‘Save our Bog’ campaign. It is now an important nature reserve, home to varied wildlife and uncommon plants.

Cross the brook by a plank bridge and turn left on a plank walk beside the brook. Take the first fork left across a ditch and continue ahead past the alligator to a defaced information board. This marks the site of a mound of heat-shattered stones dating from the Bronze Age. Continue on the brookside path and fork left across another ditch to a flight of steps.

[4] Climb the steps out of the bog and into Joy’s Wood.

(C) The wood has grown up over the site of an abandoned playing field, created by infilling the upper Coldbath Valley in the 1970s. A huge flood water tank lies beneath it.

Turn right at the top of the steps and follow the path as it runs through trees to a grassy clearing, then bears left across the end of the clearing and along the foot of a wooded bank. Follow the foot of the bank briefly, then turn right steeply up it, emerging out of the trees into the upper playing field. Walk the length of the playing field to its far right corner and squeeze through a gap at the end of a metal fence onto Windermere Road.

[5] Turn right and follow Windermere Road to the T junction with Wake Green Road.

Look at the pair of contrasting Victorian mansions just around the left hand corner; No 110 features Gothic symmetry with pointed arches and trefoils and No 108 boasts Italianate asymmetry with half-round arches and urns.

Cross Wake Green Road and turn right into it, following the pavement well set back from the road as it runs downhill past the former Spring Hill College.

This lavishly decorated Gothic pile with its big central tower was built in 1857 for the training of non-conformist ministers. Later it became home to a Hydropathic Spa and, in 1939, to Moseley Grammar School.

[6] Continue on the footway past a playing field, then squeeze between a fence and some trees and pass a row of individual early C19 Arts & Crafts houses. No 213-15 boasts stuccoes with octagonal bays and porthole lights while No 217-19 is half timbered with gables and porches.

After the last house in the row (No 247) cross Springfield Road on the left and turn left into Green Road.

[7] Walk down Green Road, an old rural byway with several early buildings in amongst more recent housing. Continue down Green Road to the ford across the River Cole. Just before the ford turn right through a gap in the fence into a grassy clearing. Walk the length of the clearing, keeping to the left hand side beside the River Cole, and then turn left across the tail-race footbridge back into Sarehole Mill car park.

Sarehole mill website: http://www.bmag.org.uk/sarehole-mill

Moseley Bog and Joy’s Wood website: http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite/moseleybog

There is a car park, café and toilets at Sarehole Mill (open April-Oct, Tuesday to Sunday, 11.30-16.00). The walk is easy but muddy in places.