Our famous bull was kitted out for tennis today. He was joined by very friendly young ladies promoting the city’s Aegon Classic tournament. Some of the world’s top female players will compete for the Harry Gem Trophy, named after the Birmingham man who invented the modern sport of lawn tennis.
Appropriately on the day our themed tour is ‘Heroes and Villains’, Birmingham honoured some real heroes. Members of the 3rd Battalion The Rifles, many recently returned from Afghanistan, were given the Freedom Of The City by the Lord Mayor, followed by a march through the city centre.
The snow put a premature end to the two day Oriental Food Festival in Birmingham’s Victoria Square. I had been looking forward to my lunch at the festival between our two Saturday walking tours. Thanks to the brave souls that joined the tour. We are proud of our record for never cancelling a tour, no matter the weather.
On 24/2, our special “Tolkien’s Middle Earth Tour” was held and was a great success. More than 20 Tolkien fans joined us for a combined coach and walking tour. Our first stopping point was Sarehole Mill, Tolkien’s childhood playground, where we also explored the surrounding area, including the ford that inspired the iconic Ford of Bruinen scene in Lord Of The Rings. After 3 1/2 hours discovering the areas Tolkien grew up in and how his experiences in Birmingham shaped his writing, everyone had just enough energy left to climb the 108 steps of Perrott’s Folly in Edgbaston, for great views over the city including the waterworks tower, which along with the folly may well be the inspiration for the title “The Two Towers”. Those who came on the tour went away with a whole new appreciation of Tolkien and his work, as well as having seen some “off the beaten track” parts of the city.
More photos of the Middle Earth Tour on our Facebook page Midlands Discovery Tours
Victoria Square in Birmingham, is over run with rabbits again after 500 years. In the 1500′s the monks that lived on the site of today’s Council House kept rabbits for food in a Conigreave. Coni meaning rabbit and greave a clearing in a wood, hence the name of Congreve Passage, the pedestrian route between the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Central Library. The rabbits this time however are part of a children’s charity event sponsored by Lindt.
On the day of writing our Saturday afternoon walk visited sites connected with the growth of Cadbury in the city, but we skirted Victoria Square avoiding the Swiss Chocolate competitor.
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There’s now just over a week to go until it’s time for our Tolkien’s Middle Earth Tour on Sunday 24th February. Making the tour even more interesting, we are delighted to announce a special tie-in with local charity Trident Reach. They recently acquired Perrott’s Folly in Edgbaston, one of the original two towers that are said to have inspired the young Tolkien, and are aiming to raise £1 million to restore it for community and visitor use. Ben Bradley from the charity has kindly agreed to open the tower and take us inside and up to the top as part of our tour, so we can get a great view of one of the areas Tolkien lived in, and over the whole city skyline. Thanks to Ben for his offer, which has given an extra dimension to our tour, and we wish him and his colleagues every success in their fundraising and public awareness campaigns.
To get your tickets for the tour, including this unique opportunity to visit Perrott’s Folly, visit our online booking site Oxboffice.
To find out more about Trident Reach’s work, including the Perrott’s Folly project, check out their website.
The Bull Ring Bull in its Christmas makeover.
The last Midlands Discovery Tours Saturday walk of the year finished close to the Bull Ring Shopping Centre on the busiest shopping day of the year.
Due to public demand we are making a few changes to the 2013 weekend walking tours. The hugely successful Saturday morning City Walking tours will continue, starting again on the 12th January 2013 at 11:30 between the Council House and the Town Hall, Victoria Square.
We are introducing new tours for Saturday afternoons that will be based on our four most popular themed walks, Canal, Jewellery, City of 1,000 Trades and our Heroes and Villains Tours, starting at 2:00 and will start at the same place as the morning tour.
Our Sunday tours will only run as specialist one off tours such as Valentines, Mothers and Fathers Days. These and other specialist tours will be promoted through this web site.
Guide dog brood bitch Annie joins Ian of Midlands Discovery Tours at Jo’s mobile coffee van before the regular Saturday morning walking tour. Although Annie is destined to be part of the Guide dog breeding program she still goes through much of the training program that prepares such dogs to become a Guide dog. Saturdays walk though Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas market was a good learning experience for her with such big crowds and lots of tasty morsels on the floor. Next test is to take her on one of the Graveyard ghost walks and see how she copes with buried bones.
Before the start of last Saturdays City Walking tour I was lucky enough to bump into the organisers of FRAME_, a 3 month exhibition of small edition artworks by both local and international artists. The brainchild of Berlin artist Elly Clarke, FRAME_ displays the work of 42 artists’ in 30 of Birminghams’ every day places we might go Pubs, Coffee Shops, Arcades, Hotels, Churches and a Hair and Nail Salon amongst others.
The photos above show the artwork in two of the locations. To the left is Birmingham Artist Dan Auluk piece entitled, Why look at money when we’re looking at art? in The Old Joint Stock, Temple Row. On the right is a unique piece named, Self-adjusting, by Berlin artist Anna Mields, on display in St Paul’s Church in the Jewellery Quarter
The Old Joint Stock is the finish location of our Birmingham Sinister City Ghost Walk, whilst St Paul’s features in both our Jewellery Quarter and Birmingham Graveyard Ghost Walks.
All works of art are for sale and although the exhibition is on for three months, even if you wanted one of the unique piece before Christmas, there our other works that can take their place in the FRAME_
Our third Warwick Ghost Walk saw the biggest crowd yet on a slightly damp November evening.
Thanks to the Rose & Crown for your support, and a special thanks to Angela, again the person that sold the most tickets. Great to meet Suzie, the new manager at the Rose and Crown, we look forward to working with you on a combined Meal & Ghost Walk offer.
Also great to meet one half of the Warwick Slaughterhouse Brewery, hope we can find a way of working with The Wild Boar on one of your themed evenings.
Myself and my partner had a really great evening on the ghost walk. It was much more detailed than we had anticipated and we really learned a lot. The two gentlemen conducting the tour were very friendly and made the evening a very exciting yet educational night out. The atmosphere was fantastic and everybody took the evening in the spirit it was meant in (no pun intended :-) A definite must do for anyone interested in ghostly stories and the history of our city.