Michael Wilkes

As the Middle Earth Weekend approaches, members of Hall Green based Shire Productions have been taking advantage of the good weather to hold outdoor rehearsals for their unique production of excerpts from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.

Adapted, directed and produced by Viv Wilkes, there will be three performances each day of the weekend taking place at various points in Moseley Bog. Groups will be escorted across from the main weekend site at Sarehole Mill to see the performances.

The Middle Earth Weekend will be held on the 17^th and 18^th of May. It will be a packed and exciting programme, so let’s hope the weather holds!

Alas, the demolition brigade is now setting about the razing of Hall Green’s historic Highfield House. We hope that Stone Developments are satisfied with themselves and their work on this ‘position potential product’ as they describe it in their atrocious sales-speak. This destruction is legitimised vandalism and it remains a total disgrace.

Those members of the Planning Committee that voted for the demolition and those officers that recommended it should be ashamed of themselves. A building that was of historic importance to the area has been sacrificed on the altar of profit motivated mediocrity to be replaced by another intensive development including yet more flats.

As if there weren’t enough in the area as it is, with many remaining unsold. Perhaps that will prove to be a sting in the tail. The sad scene at the corner of Highfield Road and Robin Hood Lane underlines the necessity of preserving all that we have got left.

Not yet the end of this particular Eden it would appear!

The bungalow, with the evocative name of ‘Eden End’, number 100 Smirrells Road situated at the corner with Kedleston Road, did not reach its reserve price (which we understand to have been £375,000) at the auction held last week and so has not yet fallen into the hands of developers.

Further good news for the area came on Thursday when the City Council’s Planning Committee rejected yet another application to demolish the bungalow at the end of Harewood Close and erect massive residential blocks on the site in what is still a locally important environmental green oasis.

We are at present strenuously resisting a planning proposal to erect more flats between Scribers Lane and Baldwins Lane and, of course, there remain other significant development threats. While profit driven developers will never consider heritage or environment you would have thought that they would have noticed the number of unsold flats in several parts of Hall Green. There are now many of these in both long established and new developments.

Overall, sustained vigilance by everyone in Hall Green along with concerted efforts continue to be needed to preserve our area and its many minor Edens.

Residents will be all too familiar with the increasing number of so called ‘Development Opportunities’ that beset us in Hall Green and which we continue do our utmost to resist. Current building threats that we are fighting include sites in or near Baldwins Lane, Scribers Lane and Harewood Close. There is continual sniffing around throughout our area by agents and those seeking to profit from dense construction on our green areas, frequently mature gardens.

One of the latest possibilities is likely to be number 100 Smirrells Road. This is the large bungalow situated on the attractive site at the corner of Smirrells Road and Kedleston Road.

As can be seen in the photograph, there is a good deal of greenery surrounding the bungalow, and the site has an area of over one third of an acre. An interesting hedge, mostly of holly, surrounds the bungalow and there are some good trees. Hedges are difficult to protect unless, as in the case of our medieval hedges, historic reasons can be cited. We are exploring this possibility.

There is an ironic aspect to the sale of 100 Smirrells Road. This is the name of the bungalow. It is called ‘Eden End’. Perhaps not boding well for the site itself, we must sustain our efforts to ensure that this will not prove to have wider significance for Hall Green, which, as a highly attractive mature suburb, has many of its very own little Edens. Long may they remain so.

I was recently in contact with a local resident in Brooklands Road, Hall Green, in connection with commemorating membership of the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corps, who carried out immensely valuable work. Pictures of posters had appeared in the press around the same time and one such is reproduced here.

With this in mind, and following a discussion with members of the Hall Green Preservation Group about wartime events in Hall Green, I recalled some time ago being given a photograph by a resident in Robin Hood Lane. While by all appearances not connected with WLA activity, the picture does show harvesting in Hall Green! The photograph is of the Moorlands in Sherwood Road which was formerly home to Moor Green Football Club with which the resident had a long connection. The ground certainly seems to be producing what looks like a very good crop!

These days, for different but very strong environmental and local reasons, we need to work together to help ensure that we keep and look after the green land that we have left. This should including gardens, enclosed green spaces and areas on the highway - some of which are historic. If we can achieve this, it would be another victory well worth digging for!

The recently established Hall Green Preservation Group has been very busy over the past month and has set up several subgroups of enthusiastic and public spirited volunteers covering houses; gardens, the environment and trees; pubs, social establishments and schools; unusual and mixed styles. A historical thread would also be followed.

A meeting of all the HGPG sub-groups recently held at Hall Green Library was shown some of the very wide range of resources on local history, records, maps and photographs that are looked after by the library staff and to which interested residents can be given access.

All this will be very important not only in recognising what we still have in Hall Green as well as what used to be but, crucially, for building cases to fight for and protect all of the important remaining parts of our unique local heritage.

As well as the continuing threats from would-be property developers sniffing around in several locations in our area, an early concern is the condition of one of the bridges in the Dingles, by the ‘whirl-hole’ as well as the central path itself.

Hall Green Preservation Group is undoubtedly the best hope that we have to ensure that disasters such as the demolition of the locally listed and historic Highfield House (now, alas, underway) are never allowed to happen again.

The ninth weekend celebrating the work of world renowned author JRR Tolkien takes place in Birmingham on the 17^th and 18^th of May at Sarehole Mill in Hall Green. This unique event will be open between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. on each day.

Note that the name this year is the ‘Middle Earth Weekend’. It will, as usual, include a wealth of interest for fans of Tolkien’s work (incidentally, Tolkien preferred the hyphenated form ‘Middle-earth’, which you may see written elsewhere). There will also be a wide range of events, displays and activities for people of any age who like a festival with a deliberately traditional and old fashioned air about it. The attractions this year include craft workshops, a historic rope maker, flint knappers and falconry displays. Medieval re-enactment and the Bowmen of Swanshurst will be also amongst those at the weekend.

Hall Green based drama group Shire Productions will dramatise extracts from Beowulf in the setting of Moseley Bog. “I’m looking forward to this, but just a little nervously,” said Councillor Michael Wilkes. “I’ll be taking a role as Beowulf, but for those who know the story (see Beowulf and Birmingham on this site) there is the part where Beowulf is a young warrior and a part where Beowulf is, shall we say, somewhat more mature. No prizes for guessing which I’ve been asked to play!”

The Inaugural Meeting of Hall Green Preservation Group was held on March 20^th at Hall Green Library. Michael Wilkes, Paula Smith and 30 residents attended. In a lively and constructive meeting, many valuable contributions were made. The formation of HGPG was seen as highly desirable after the Planning Committee’s appalling decision that will lead to the loss of Highfield House and its replacement with a dense modern development including flats. Maximum protection should be sought for all remaining buildings of interest in and near Hall Green. In addition to the statutorily listed Sarehole Mill and the Church of the Ascension, these included: The Bulls Head (Stratford Road, around 1840); the Friends Meeting House (Hamlet Road); the late Victorian semis (‘the Hamlets’) in Hamlet Road and Fox Hollies Road; the former farm workers’ cottages in Paradise Lane and Cambrai House.

HGPG activities should extend beyond our ward to cover buildings of importance to the area. Amongst examples nearby buildings were: 264 Wake Green Road, the childhood home of JRR Tolkien; ‘Millmead’ in Wake Green Road (20^th century but may have been built using medieval materials); The Chalet (and Tudor barn) in Green Road; the Charles Lane Trust Alms Houses in Fox Hollies Road; the Foster Trust residential bungalows in Gracewell Road. It was noted that a small area includes Tolkien’s house, Millmead, the bungalows, the Chalet and Sarehole Mill making the area of particular value.

The meeting was advised that all pubs and churches in Hall Green had a degree of protection (the extent of this should be clarified) and that buildings earlier than 1840 apparently carried automatic statutory protection. Clarification of such protection was needed and the date may change. The meeting agreed to extend the reach of preservation to wider elements of our built and natural environment. Suggestions included: Four Arches bridge in the Dingles; the ‘middle path’ in the Dingles (arguably of great antiquity); the medieval hedges in Webb Lane, Paradise Lane, Robin Hood Lane and Scribers Lane. In liaison with The Shire Country Park Friends, the preservation group would also keep a close eye on elements of The Shire Country Park, which includes historic Moseley Bog with its Bronze Age burnt mounds as well as its Tolkien connections.

It was also noted that Hall Green had two interesting railway stations - Hall Green and Yardley Wood. Hall Green station would reach its centenary this year (for which a celebration will be organised in the summer) as would Yardley Wood (which may already be protected to some extent).

It was agreed that a comprehensive list should be made and, following the realisation that Local Listing carried trivial penalties and was easily overcome by developers and apparently little regarded by some planning officers, the precise nature of any apparent protection should be thoroughly investigated. It was noted with regret that there seemed to be little will in the Planning Department to support residents in their preservation efforts or even to enforce existing regulations.

It was noted with disappointment that Sarehole Mill had not been awarded capital funding from the Council for the de-silting of the mill pool. It was also noted that if funding was not found in the near future, milling would cease and that Birmingham would then have only one working water mill. It was suggested that if the flow of water was sufficient the mill could make its own electricity, adding to green credentials.

The rules covering Conservation Areas should be examined. Hall Green had one such area (Miall Road and part of School Road). Other areas could possibly be identified but so much building work and alterations were going on that essential features were being lost. This applied to the terraced farm worker cottages in Paradise Lane. The meeting noted that the materials of which a building was constructed could be of considerable interest. Apparently, little could be made of this at present since the materials belong to the owner who may do as they please.

An insidious process of ‘manufactured dereliction’ could be discerned. Developers first destroy the garden of a mature property. Then the property itself declines rapidly for reasons on which the meeting could only speculate. The claim is then made that there is nothing worth preserving and planning permission follows. In this way, the distinctive character of an area is lost. Gardens should therefore get early protection and that whatever force the Mature Suburbs Policy may have should be rigorously applied.

HGPG committee and sub-groups will draw up a full list, identify priorities, establish the nature of the various forms of protection and outline pro-active and reactive courses of action. Many people volunteered to be active within the group and a register of contact details was taken. People would be kept informed and there would be general meetings from time to time.

Hall Green Focus readers will recall that despite the intensive local campaign and the massive petition presented by Councillor Michael Wilkes (who also spoke at the meeting of the Planning Committee) the applications by Tesco to install themselves in Robin Hood Lane near to the junction with Highfield Road were given the go ahead.

We understand that it is intended to open this latest Tesco Express in late May or early June. We take the view that an over-dominant supplier will inevitably mean that there is less choice for the consumer in the longer term.

We encourage residents to continue to use the local convenience stores who have worked very hard to provide services to the community. Long may they continue to do so.