Distance: Around 6 miles

Difficulty of the Terrain: Medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. from Dropbox

Walk from Stourbridge in the Black Country along canal towpaths and across fields to the small town of Kinver at the southern most tip of Staffordshire, famous for Kinver Edge and the Kinver rock houses.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Actually Existing Hobbiton

When I was growing up in Birmingham in the 2000s, thanks to the success of Peter Jackson’s series of films adapted from local boy J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books, mentions of Hobbits were fairly ubiquitous.

Looking to grub a few tourist pounds from the phenomenon, the City Council put out a sightseeing trail – including a few short suburban walks – which took in sights and landmarks which could potentially have inspired locations in The Lord of the Rings. Roland Barthes clearly never passed by the Council House on Victoria Square.

Locations listed in this leaflet included Perrot’s Folly and the old Edgbaston Water Tower, two towers which face each other near Edgbaston Reservoir on the outskirts of the city centre. As well as the University of Birmingham’s neo-Byzantine inner precincts and gargantuan Old Joe Clocktower, which were completed when J.R.R. Tolkien was in his early teens. It also included some less dramatic and more homely locations in Hall Green, essentially Birmingham’s ur-lower middle class suburbia, which is where Tolkien actually grew up. Prior to the First World War when he actually lived there the area was still pretty rural. Sarehole Mill, a rare survival of a working water mill long cared for by Birmingham’s museums service, featured prominently in the guide leaflet has been considered a source location for the watermill that serves The Shire in the books.

And of course, as I have indicated, there is certainly something of The Shire and Hobbit’dom in the petit bourgeois, comfortable, ordered world of suburban Hall Green which has been carved out of the north Worcestershire countryside.

Hall Green however, has no burrow-like houses carved out of the rock. To encounter these you have to head over to the other side of Birmingham, to the southernmost tip of Staffordshire, not far from the similarly comfortable Black Country town of Stourbridge. Kinver Edge is a long, steep (though not amazingly high) sandstone outcrop sitting above the little town of Kinver which nestles along the lower part of it’s slope. The Edge is owned and managed by the National Trust, up until the 1960s people inhabited a cluster of cave houses in a prominent sandstone outcrop on it’s northern flank. Today these are run by the National Trust as a museum, with the cottage-esque rock houses which are on display presented as they would have appeared at the start of the 20th Century, around the time that J.R.R. Tolkien resided in Hall Green.

I have no idea whether Tolkien, either as a child living just south of Birmingham, or as an adult working at the University of Oxford and writing fantasy literature in his spare time, was aware of the rock houses at Kinver Edge. However, upon entering and having a look around the ones which are operated as a museum, it is clear that by the standards of rural housing in the early 20th Century they were adequate and comfortable dwellings. Possibly cosy and comfortable enough to appeal to Hobbits even.

Keen to visit the rock houses and see the wider Edge where the National Trust are engaged in a rewilding project, I decided to plan a walking route from Stourbridge Town Railway Station. The walk is relatively short, being around six miles, and is eminently doable in a couple of hours. However, it passes through some impressively varied countryside, so is well worth it just for the stroll alone.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps

One of my favourite things about visiting Stourbridge is the train ride between Stourbridge Junction and Stourbridge Town. Stourbridge Junction is the mainline station where frequent trains run between Worcester and Birmingham, and then onto Dorridge, Stratford-upon-Avon and several times a day down to London. Stourbridge Town is a little branch line station a tad over a kilometre from Stourbridge Junction, immediately adjacent to the town’s bus station. Shuttling between them every 10 minutes is the Stourbridge Town Shuttle. It is rare enough in the UK these days to have a little inter-urban branch line serving a single stop in a town centre, it is even more unique that they have their own bespoke train unit serving them. Possibly the most unique train in regular service in the country, the Parry People Mover (British rail class 139) is a tiny, incredibly efficient gas powered railcar. Capable of carrying up to around 40 people, it constantly shuttles the short way between the mainline station and the town centre. Check it out below:

Despite having operated very successfully in Stourbridge since 2009 the idea has yet to catch on elsewhere in the UK, perhaps because of the lack of appropriate railway lines to utilise the concept. Something which I think is a real shame. But anyway, onto the walk…

Having reached Stourbridge Town Railway Station exit from the single platform onto the concourse for the bus station.

Turn left and walk round towards the main terminal of the bus station.

Just before you reach the main terminal you’ll come to a flight of steps on your left which lead down into an underpass.

Once in the underpass walk across to the far side and then head up the left hand ramp onto St. John’s Road.

From here turn left down the side road immediately ahead of you onto Stourbridge High Street. As you walk to the High Street on your right hand side stands the Red Cone pub (a nod to the town’s historic status as a major centre of the glass industry) and a branch of the West Bromwich Building Society.

Once you reach the High Street, turn right and walk straight along it for about five minutes. Stourbridge has a fairly lively town centre and there are plenty of shops including a large branch of TESCOs in a shopping centre on the left of the High Street from which you can buy provisions for the walk if needed.

Presently you come to a y-shaped junction. The small square-like area here was at one time the town’s marketplace. On your left the tall red brick gothic tower of the old Stourbridge Borough Council Town Hall rises up gauntly.

Having reached this junction carry on straight across it and down the gently sloping road on the other side.

After a couple of minutes walking the road narrows into a short path which leads up an underpass.

Once inside the underpass turn right once you reach a small sunken square in the middle of it (I turned left at this point, but this was a mistake… Albeit not a disastrous one).

Having walked up the ramp onto the side of the dual carriageway, take an almost immediate left down Canal Street, just after you cross the road bridge over the River Stour. As you turn first the Old Wharf Inn and then the Bonded Warehouse are on your right hand side.

Presently as you pass these buildings and enter a long strip of roughly paved land serving as a car park the area takes on the familiar trappings of a canal terminus, with narrowboats visible on your right hand side.

Presently you come to one of these anti-moped and motorcycle gates which stop people driving onto the towpath. This marks the start of the Stourbridge Canal Towpath.

Once on the pleasant towpath the next mile or two of walking is incredibly straightforward. You just follow the line of the canal along the towpath.

It is a pleasant walk, with a few interesting sights along the way.

Suburban Stourbridge is pleasant, not least because the people are also incredibly friendly. I was walking along the canal on a busy Friday morning and practically everybody I passed who was heading in the direction of Stourbridge town centre cheerily said hello to me. Not something that you’d get in Birmingham, or indeed most parts of the West Midlands conurbation, nor for that matter walking in most parts of urban or semi-urban Britian.

Along the way you walk across several bridges leading into what once must have been wharfs for long shut and demolished factories or warehousing areas.

You also pass The Ruskin Glass Centre, a workshop complex which is home to numerous craft businesses working with glass, which continue to keep the flame of the town’s glass working traditions alight.

Presently you arrive at Wordsley Junction. This is crossed by a bridge.

As you begin the climb up to the level of the bridge on your left hand side there is a left footpath, just where the bridge’s parapet begins.

Turn off the towpath here and head into some woody scrubland which runs alongside the canal bank.

It is of course possible to continue the walk along the canal towpath if you prefer, by carrying on over the Wordsley Junction Bridge and heading left, but I decided to cut the corner.

Having left the towpath walk along the path through the trees with the canal generally visible on your right hand side.

Presently you come to another of those dividers intended to stop people driving motorised bikes or other vehicles along the path.

Shortly after this you come to a fork in the path, take the right hand turn and continue through the undergrowth. The canal is no longer visible at this point.

Presently you enter a short wooded section. Continue to follow the well defined path through the trees. When I walked the route it was fairly busy with older people walking their dogs, parents out with their toddlers and a couple of joggers.

Presently an old looking, but well maintained metal style appears ahead of you in the middle of a very ancient looking hedgerow.

Walk up to it and cross.

Here you find yourself in a horse’s paddock, with the canal running along the bottom of it. There is no immediately apparent path, but it is clearly a well trodden route. There was a man walking his dog across it as I made my own way along the field.

At the far side of the field you confront another style.

With my backpack on it was a bit of a squeeze to get across it, given the low hanging branches of the hedgerow but I managed it.

Once across you find yourself at the top of a bridge across the canal. You could rejoin the towpath here if you like but I opted to instead continue to walk through the fields by passing through a metal device (this one probably more to stop large four legged animals than motorbikes) and into another paddock.

Having entered the paddock it is clear that you have reached the very edge of the urban area. On your right on the far side of the canal stretches an expanse of trees which when I walked the route in mid-November was a riot of orange. To your left rises a steadily sloping hill, which eventually forms a tree clad rocky outcrop.

Initially the path across the field is pretty clear.

Then presently it divides into two.

I initially took the higher of the two paths but a quick consultation with my Ordnance Survey app told me that I was better off taking the lower one instead, so I switched.

At the far side of the field you will find a style.

Having crossed it you will come to a very clearly defined path.

Follow this through what appears to be a horse breeding farm, till you reach another style.

Cross this style as well and walk along the driveway of the horse breeding farm.

Walk a short distance along the lane. Presently you will come to a junction. Keep heading right at this point.

After a short distance down this part of the track you will see a white painted house.

Follow the road past the white painted house.

Having done this canal boats, both in and out of the water will be visible to your left.

Continue to the bottom of the lane.

Continue to the bottom of the lane.

Here turn right and across a canal bridge.

On the far side of the canal bridge just before a scrapyard which stands in the shadow of a huge electricity pylon you will find a set of steep steps which lead down onto the canal towpath.

Take these steps and turn left at the bottom.

Having now rejoined the towpath, keep walking along it for a little over half a mile.

This takes you through some of the nicest open countryside of the walk.

Highlights include an impressively rotten and completely sunken hulk of a narrow boat. Perhaps optimistically, maybe as a joke, when I passed there was a sign pinned onto it offering it for sale “much renovation needed” for £250.00 “or next best offer”.

Shortly after the hulk you reach the edge of the large canalside village of Stourton, which grew up in the late 18th Century as a canal junction and servicing centre.

Here you need to leave the towpath and A449, Wolverhampton Road for a short distance.

When I walked the route there were major works being undertaken on one of the locks, so the towpath was shut. As such I was redirected through a hedgerow and onto the road that way.

Having turned off the towpath and onto the road turn left and walk along the pavement for several hundred metres.

Presently having passed a major junction where the A449 joins the A458 which leads back to Stourbridge, you come to a series of white painted buildings by the canal situated on your right.

Having walked past these, take the right hand turn immediately after them onto the A458 as it runs up a hill.

When I walked the route it was very busy with traffic so it was not easy to cross the road at this point.

As such I took a flight of steps down onto a lane running up from the towpath and crossed a little further up.

Once you are on the left hand side of the road there is a pavement which runs for as far as you need to follow the road.

Walk along this pavement up the hill for about 200-250 metres.

Presently on your left there is a sign-post pointing into a field.

Walk up the short flight of steps to the gate and head into the field.

Once in the field there is a clear footpath across. Use this path to get across the field in the direction of an extensive wood on the other side.

Here you will find a style which leads onto a path which heads through the woodland.

Follow this clearly defined path through the woodland heading steadily downhill.

The effect was perhaps heightened by having been there in autumn, at the point where the leaves had largely turned, but not yet fallen. However, I really felt that woodlands and a Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic and feel to them. Which made it easy to imagine the Birmingham School and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood they became, making the journey out from the West Midlands conurbation for inspiration.

Presently the woodland path begins to follow a stream.

This is the wonderfully Tolkienesque and fantastical sounding Smestow Brook. Like so many fast flowing streams in this part of the world it was once used to power industry. Ironworking began in its valley during the Early Modern period, with significant ironworks and mills operational during the 18th and 19th Century, a Spadeworks operated as late as 1912, when a dispute amongst the businesses’ owners meant that it ceased. There are next to no traces of any of this today, but this history is a reminder that many tranquil and apparently ancient natural places would have been very different just outside living memory.

Eventually you reach a metal gate.

Having passed through the gate, turn left and walk a very short way down a lane.

At a bend in the road you will see a bridge across the river on your left.

Meanwhile more or less straight ahead of you you will see a snicket way on your right hand side before the bridge.

Turn down this snicket way and keep walking.

After a hairpin bend in the path you will find yourself walking on a path above the river which is on your right.

At the end of the path you come to a gate, cross this and enter the paddock beyond.

From here you can glimpse your first view of Kinver itself. St. Peter’s Church is situated high up on the Edge which is heavily tree lined, whilst the roofs of the town nestle below.

Follow the path across the paddock.

There are numerous horses grazing in enclosures, or at least there were on the day that I visited. I even saw one playing with a ball type toy – which was a first for me!

Part way across the paddock lies another gate.

Then a little further on, another gate which leads out onto a park type grassland space.

Follow the path across this heads in the direction of a gaunt 1960s vintage social club. This was getting good use even in the middle of the day when I passed by.

The social club has a large car park with a children’s playground and a model railway club on the far side of it.

Walk to the far side of the car park, following the fence of the model railway club to reach the lane which leads to the town.

Follow the lane a short way to the main road.

You are now very clearly into the town.

Having reached the junction with the main road turn right.

You then follow the main road into the town.

Presently you reach the central shopping area where there are numerous pubs, cafes, tearooms, restaurants and a couple of takeaways where you can get some food. I arrived just after midday so went to get some lunch when I arrived there.

If you’re keen to visit the Hobbit-like rock dwellings up on the Edge itself, just before you get onto the high street proper, very near the Plough & Harrow turn left and walk up Stone Lane.

You can follow this reasonably steep, and very suburban feeling road all the way up to the cottages.

The detached houses and bungalows presently give way to woodland, and this is the cue for the first sight of the rock horses, which stand on your left.

The access for them is about a 100 metres further on just inside the woodland. There is a path up from the National Trust car park.

Having reached the rock houses, as well as the preserved dwellings themselves, you can also access a series of well defined trails created by the National Trust which snake all around the Edge. They are well worth a wander.

Getting Back

Having headed up onto Kinver Edge, looked at the rock houses and gone for a bit of a walk around the top of the Edge itself, I headed back via a series of lanes towards Kinver High Street.

There are numerous bus stops along here which are served by the 242 bus which handily runs all the way back to Stourbridge Interchange, the combined bus and train station where this walk began. In the middle of the day and throughout the early evening buses are more or less hourly, at about thirty or forty minutes past the hour, meaning that you shouldn’t have to wait for long. When I was waiting however, a bus (whether running late or really early I do not know, probably the former) turned up about 25 minutes earlier than I anticipated. Which was good for me, as it meant that I got back to Stourbridge sooner than I had expected, but is perhaps worth watching out for. There is a large secondary school on the edge of Kinver so I imagine that buses running between 15:00 and 16:00 are probably very busy.

These considerations aside, the journey back should be pretty smooth and easy, with incredibly straightforward access to the shuttle back up to the mainline station at the end. Meaning that once you’re back at Stourbridge Interchange you will have been “There and Back Again”, to borrow a phrase from Bilbo Baggins.