We relaunched The Walkspace Erratics last Sunday with a delightful springtime boulder hunt. We took the name “Erratic” from the glacial erratic boulders which were deposited across the region in an ice age 450,000 years ago. Robson and Andy felt it was time to pay tribute and so devised a walk from Cannon Hill Park to Selly Oak Park via The University of Birmingham.

The boulders were formed in a volcanic eruption 450-460 million years ago and later travelled from the Arenig mountains in Wales to the West Midlands on an ice sheet. Eons passed, the ice retreated and the boulders now litter the alien shores of 21st Century suburbia. They can be found lurking in parks, graveyards, roadside verges, beer gardens and hidden in walls and buildings.

The word “erratic” comes from the Latin errare meaning to wander, roam or stray. The restless rocks are still on the move: many have disappeared since the great age of discovery in the 19th Century. The picture below shows the Cannon Hill Park boulder in 1901 and beside it is another, smaller boulder. The main boulder remains but its little cousin has upped and left. Forget Paris, the original flâneurs are here (for now).

The concept of “roaming heritage” doesn’t just apply to boulders though; Cannon Hill Park also contains erratics of a very different kind. The Golden Lion Inn hasn’t travelled quite as far as the boulders but it has moved further than most buildings are likely to. A rare 16th Century survivor, it originally stood on Deritend High street, two miles away. In 1910 it was dismantled and removed to make way for a road-widening scheme and then re-erected in its current location and used as cricket pavillion. It was listed in 1952 and then left to fall to ruin. The support scaffolding is now as much a part of the building’s heritage as the C16 timbers.

A few hundred yards away, beyond the crazy golf course, you’ll find two more “erratics” hiding out as flowerbed ornaments. These ornate stone structures are in fact spare parts from the Town Hall in the city centre. They’re called capitals, ie. the bits at the tops of columns, as seen here on the cover of Anthony Peers’ book.

The capitals may have only travelled a couple of miles but the Town Hall itself is a copy of the Temple of Castor and Pollux of ancient Rome. The leaves in the design are acanthus, a genus native to the Mediterranean and one of the most commonly occurring motifs in classical architecture.

To quote Crab Man: “Once you become sensitive to these ‘erratics’ you will begin to navigate a landscape from which such anomalies, large and small, repeatedly pop up.” (Counter-Tourism: The Handbook, 2012, pg 137)

The boulders cover far more ground than we were able to in a single day so there are plenty left for future walks. Stay tuned for more boulder action but in the meantime we hope you can join us for our next Erratic, a pilgrimage to Spaghetti Junction with Flatpack Festival on May 22nd.

This year we invited members of the public along to join in our annual Stirchley skull walk. I say annual… the first one only took place last year under rule-of-six lockdown restrictions but someone on the walk said we should do this every year and so an ethereal manifesto has started to form. Check out the inaugural skull walk to get a skull overlay for your own local streets.

Of course, an unwelcoming storm of horizontal rain and icy winds blew through just before the walk but eight people still turned up to follow an invisible skull outline around the streets of Stirchley in south Birmingham on a wet Sunday night.

Andy Howlett baked the soul cakes and led the 90-minute walk which criss-crossed between this world and the next. And despite fewer houses decorating the front yards this year, there were still plenty of real signs that the spirits were at large.

Messages in the landscape

No! Keep out! Danger of death! Stay safe! Too late! Ends! RIP! Emortal! Warnings of graves being dug. All the signs were there that this was no ordinary walk.

Sounds of the spirit world

At the top of the skull, the spirit sounds came to us in the rustling of tree leaves and whistling of the wind through the back alleys of Stirchley East. We paused at the top of Hazelwell Park and a bat flapped out of the tree line. A flagpole screeched by Selco. And a broken streetlamp flapped overhead against its pole like something out of Twin Peaks. Naming no names, some started saying the words on street signs out loud in monstrous or ghoulish or hissing tones: “Schoooool!” “Caaaaution!” “Travisssss Perkinssss”

Faces in strange places

From van doors to grit bins to cloud formations viewed from the darkness of Wickes’ car park, the other side communicated its presence through pareidolia. Witches on broomsticks in the sky. Shadows demons lurking in the corners. Beaked hooded figures in the River Rea of blood. Screaming faces etched into Bournville Lane’s Victorian housing.

Portals to the underworld

On Halloween, the portals between worlds open up everywhere. From drain covers in grass verges with moss embossed runes to the gateposts of hell to people frozen into stone bollards guarding entrances and exits. And then there are the snickets, ginnels and alleyways where time itself seems to shiver and ripple as humans pass through to the other side.

The End

After the walk, the participants looked visibly relieved to have made it back. A few went to the pub to sate their thirst. Others peeled away to trains or home. For us, we walked home all alone, past graves and tombstones. Where the bunny rabbits were waiting for us…

Stay safe, everyone. See you next year for Skullwalk 3: Rise of the Walking Dead?