Moseley Bog

Went to Moseley Bog today for the first time. It's just off the Yardley Wood Road in Birmingham; here's an approximate Google map. Hopefully you can make out the large area of greenery: this is the wood surrounding the bog. We parked in Linkswood Close, just off the road; then walked down to the pedestrian entrance. There's no car park (at the moment), though there are plans to make over the area soon.

One reason for visiting was to see the place where J.R.R. Tolkein spent a lot of time as a boy (he lived nearby). You can certainly see how the woods would fire the imagination of a child: dark green, damp, deciduous forest, with meandering paths, mouldering wooden steps, exotic fungi, fragments of wall (I believe there used to be a mill on the site once - the old millpond is still there), streams and boggy pools. Madeleine loved it, finding gnarly holes rotted out of ancient tree trunks to hide in, kicking leaves around, splashing in puddles, and walking along the wooden walkways and bridges which circle the muddiest parts of the site. Plus it was virtually empty and very quiet, so we had it almost to ourselves, adding to the sense of "another world". There was a sense of mystery about all the fragmentary ruins, plus we came across a couple of mossy sculptures, one of a crocodile and another of a dinosaur, which Madeleine approached with trepidation. Great fun.