The Two Towers - Birmingham 1994

With Tolkien's Legacy back firmly in the public eye with the premier of The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey in New Zealand this week, it seems appropriate to share a connection related to the landmarks that inspired some of the imagery that makes the story so compelling.

6AM, the water is still at Edgbaston Reservoir, not that it should have been anywhere else but it is still, like a millpond. The willows that surround the reservoir are reaching like fingers over the reed beds, coots and moorhens swim in between the rushes, whilst ducks and geese are still asleep, that is until my crew and I take to the water in a Janousek racing 4... A warm up row towards the dam then turn, and a racing start, blades dig-in hard and we get moving with a thunk-slide-thunk as the rhythm picks up and there is a bubbling hiss as the boat gathers speed, 700 metres down the course and we run out of water and slow down after the burn. A brief recovery before turning about to repeat the exercise, and a brief chance to scan the horizon.

Tolkien’s two towers are silhouetted against the shifting gold and blue of the dawn sky not Orthanc and Barad Dur, but the Waterworks Tower and Perrott’s Folly, said to be the inspiration for the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A bit of research reveals that when Perrott’s folly was built in 1758 it was set in open parkland  and is now surrounded by not industry but homes and businesses that have grown up as a result of industrialisation and not too dissimilar from Orthanc at Isengard in that respect. The Waterworks tower is an elaborate chimney of a pumping station that was built to supply the city with water and would likely have been pumping out smoke to blacken the sky during Tolkien’s childhood, so could well have been  visualised as Barad Dur.

Another course and recovery and the sun begins to rise into the sky emerging from the left side of the cluster of towers that is the city centre. Perfectly reflected in the mirror like surface of the water, glinting in the mirror glass of the Hyatt Hotel, silhouetting the white concrete Alpha Tower that define the end of Broad Street. The slender BT tower appears the tallest with a s succession of residential towers and office blocks towers marching down the hill towards the Rotunda, strangely seeming to be the shortest from this vantage point. The city, so peaceful from this distance gradually awakens as we put in more laps. The boat is lifted out of the water, hosed and wiped down, returned to its rack in the boathouse. A quick run around the reservoir to warm down after the rowing, the path meanders its way through the trees of Rotton Park, past the sailing club and up onto the wall. A view down to the turn in the canal that is fed by the reservoir and the steadily increasing traffic on the Icknield Port Road. A golden spire, a stupa at the end of the wall marks a Buddhist Temple. A turn back beneath the Tower Ballroom towards the boathouse, the surface of the water takes on the ripple of a steady breeze as the day gets underway. Walking back towards the two towers the aroma of bacon and eggs fills the air issuing from the Reservoir cafe. Good morning Birmingham!