Across the Midlands there are sites and places which are associated with folk custom, folk myth and legend.
Lately, as exhibitions like Radical Landscapes (which visited Warwick Arts Centre in late 2022) and this spring’s Making Mischief – Folk Costume in Britian a little further south in Warwickshire at Compton Verney speak to a current interest in the topic.
These exhibitions adopted a catholic approach, creatively responding to and exploring ancient rites and customs associated with little villages and longstanding sacred sites, as well as contemporary reworkings of traditions like morris and contemporary community celebrations like carnival, developed in the UK context by Black British and other communities of colour since the Second World War.
Such a catholic approach mirrors how Walk Midlands produces walks right across the region. The selection below shows how to walk to a wonderfully wide array of sites and locations associated with myth, folkore and all manner of customary, community and folk celebrations across the English Midlands.
Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
Rugeley – Abbots Bromley
Perhaps the most famous of the Midlands contemporary, traditional, folk customs. The annual Abbots Bromley Horn Danace takes place in early September in the eponymous south east Staffordshire village. Read more
Border Country
Wychbury Hill
An enigmatic, possibly sometimes errie, location righ on the boundary between the West Midlands metropolis and northern Worcestershire, the Severn and the Trent. Most infamously connected with a modern unsolved mystery and its folk memory, but a place of great significance for millennia. Read more
Well Dressing Country
Ashbourne – Tissington
Gentle walk on the southern edge of the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire from Ashbourne north to Tissington, perportedly the home of well dressing, and host each May to one of the most widely visited displays. Read more
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
Coughton Court
Walk in the Warwickshire countryside from Henley-in-Arden Railway Station to Coughton Court, most famous for its connections to pro-Catholic upper class intrigue in the 16th and 17th Century, including 1605’s Gunpowder Plot. Read more
Caradoc’s Last Stand
Caer Caradoc
Topping out at 459 metres above sea level Caer Caradoc is one of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’s tallest hills. It is famed in folklore for being the place where the British chief Caradoc (Caratacus) made his last stand against the Roman’s and hid in a cave near the summit. Read more
The Crooked House, Himley
The Crooked House, Himley
Widely famed for its spectacular slant – created by subsidence from centuries of cola mining – The Crooked House pub in Himley, right on the boundary between West Midlands and Staffordshire, is a true modern Midlands legend Read more
Malvern Ridge
Ledbury – Malvern
Immesnley prominant in the south western part of the Midlands region where it rises from the flat River Severn Plain the Malvern Ridge as a whole has a manner of folklore and customs connected with it. Read more
Royal Oak
Boscobel House
Not all folk customs are created by ordinary people themselves, sometimes those in power pitch-in. The traditions and folklore which have sprung up around the time the future Charles II spent hiding in the Staffordshire/Shropshire hinterland in 1651 (including perportedly in an oak tree) are a case in point… Read more
Devil’s Stone
Hemlock Stone
On the south western edge of the Nottingham conurbation lies an enigmatic sandstone rock, just under 9 metres tall called the Hemlock stone. With supposedly Druidic connections, subject of Medieval folklore and centrepiece of a modern community festival to boot. Read more
Herefordshire Beacon
British Camp
Situated towards the southern end of the Malvern ridge, the Herefordshire Beacon (also known as British Camp) was home thousands of years ago, to a major ceremonial or ritual site during the Iron and Bronze Ages. Today a beacon is lit at the top to mark major moments in the life of the nation. Read more