[1] On leaving the library turn left onto Bristol Rd and look around as you walk for this is the best part of the old Bournbrook High St, built in diverse styles (1870-1910). The Arts and Crafts Library itself with an elaborate entrance bay, the massive Gothic Pumping Station (lhs) at the back of a small park plastered with graffiti, and the Friends Institute (rhs) in Tudor style with a many posted porch.
[2] Continue along Bristol Rd, crossing it at the pedestrian lights, and turn first right into Hubert Rd. This is part of the first speculative estate in Selly Oak, built in the 1870s for the labouring classes and now let to students. These long rows of uniform houses reveal, on closer inspection, a variety of decorative detail and many hidden terraces. Walk up Hubert Rd across Dartmouth Rd and past quiet cul-de-sacs (lhs School Terrace, rhs Florence Buildings, lhs Rose Cottages, rhs Holly Grove) to Exeter Rd, which marks the boundary of the first estate.
[3] The building on the other side of Exeter Rd was the Cooperative Society Branch No 1 (1899). Turn left onto Exeter Rd past the former St Wulstan’s Church (rhs 1906, Gothic with pinnacles) then first right into Tiverton Rd. Walk up past the Selly Oak Baths (rhs 1905, Baroque with garlands and cherubs) to the T junction with Raddlebarn Rd. Turn left briefly into Raddlebarn Rd then cross it to the Warwards Lane corner by a wide Recreation Ground.
[4] Take the tarmac path from the corner into the Rec and follow it around the old bowling green to a junction of paths. Take the right hand path beside a row of trees. The Rec is part of a raised plateau from which the area probably took its name (Selly meaning clearing on a shelf of land). It was farmed by Selly Hall until the 1900s when the spacious Selly Park estate was developed. The C18 Hall survives as part of St Paul’s Convent at the far corner of the Rec; a 10 minute detour to see its gatehouse and peaceful courtyard is worthwhile if time allows (not included in the main walk time). Back at the row of trees follow the path past a play area with picnic benches to the Warwards Lane/Woodside Rd corner.
[5] Cross Warwards Rd at the island, turn left briefly, then right into an alleyway and follow it to Gristhorpe Rd. Cross Gristhorpe Rd and follow the tarmac path ahead into Muntz Park. This pleasant little space was created in 1905 on land donated by a local factory owner, E E Muntz. Dances were held in the old marl pit - The Dell - before the Great War. There are picnic benches and an information board beside the play area. Continue ahead on the tarmac path past The Dell and emerge onto Umberslade Rd. Turn right and walk past Raddlebarn School (rhs 1909) to the Raddlebarn Rd crossroads.
[6] Turn left and follow Raddlebarn Rd to a brick bridge. Look down from the side of the bridge into the deep cutting below to see the canal and railway linking Birmingham and Worcester. The Country Girl Pub just before the bridge (rhs) was a beer house in 1881 and still has a rural feel about it. Continue on Raddleburn Rd across the bridge and turn first left into Elm Rd and the Bournville Village.
The Cadbury brothers moved their chocolate factory into the countryside here in 1879 and embarked on a social experiment: to create a model village of decent houses for working families, together with gardens, open spaces and public amenities. The best houses (1895-1905) were designed by W A Harvey in Arts & Crafts style, a rural domestic form using simple materials - brick, roughcast, timber - with an emphasis on craft techniques. He devised many individual features which were copied on houses around the country for decades to come.
[7] Walk along the tree lined Elm Rd past pleasant simple terraces to the first Harvey houses (rhs, No 90 with corner buttresses, No 92-4 with varied window styles). Cross Laburnum Rd and walk into Holly Grove ahead. The houses on the right (No 1-10) are Harvey’s most decorative and diverse, built to arouse interest from passengers on the nearby railway. Return to Laburnum Rd and turn left into it past more houses (on rhs, No 24-6 with thin hand made bricks, No 28-30 with hip roofed bay windows, No 32 with big timber porch) to a flat green on the right with a Great War Memorial.
[8] Bear left at the flat green into Sycamore Rd and follow the left hand pavement past more Harvey houses (on rhs No 10-12 with stepped gables, No 14-20 with passageway; then on lhs, No 9-11 with swept up roof, No 13-15 with varied window surrounds, No 17-21 with bridges). Continue past the Bank (lhs with beehives) to a row of shops and cross Sycamore Rd on the pedestrian crossing. Walk up to the Rest House shelter at the centre of a mounded green.
The Green, the heart of the village, is a good place to survey the public buildings around it (1905-1913). The Rest House itself based on Dunster’s butter market. Across Sycamore Rd shops with jettied upper stories. Working clockwise - the Romanesque Parish Church, the Junior School with its 48 bell Carillon (quarter hourly), Ruskin Hall in memory of John Ruskin the critic, the Friends Meeting House with octagonal stair turret, and the Day Continuation School, for further education.
[9] From the Rest House take the path towards Bournville Continuation College and walk back into Sycamore Rd, on the left hand pavement. Cross Maple Rd and turn left into it. The C15/16 timbered Selly Manor (rhs, on corner) with jettied first floor was moved here from Bournbrook Rd and is now a museum. Next to it is Minworth Greaves which contains parts of a C14/15 cruck hall. Continue along Maple Rd and bear right, just past the garden centre entrance, onto a footpath beside Stocks Wood. This is reputedly one of the few remnants of the great Forest of Arden. Follow the woodside path to Acacia Rd and turn left.
[10] Walk along Acacia Rd, across Maple Rd, and on to the T junction with Linden Rd. Cross Linden Rd and take the alley opposite beside house No 24-6 (lhs, Harvey’s own house with a box room over the porch). Follow the alley through to Oak Tree Lane and turn right into it, keeping to the left hand pavement. Many of the original hedges and trees along this narrow winding byway have been retained.
[11] Follow Oak Tree Lane past Linden Rd, coming in from the right, and continue ahead. Pass the junction with Raddlebarn Rd on the right (the former 19C Workhouse and Infirmary buildings can be seen in the distance) and continue along Oak Tree Lane, still on the left hand pavement, to the pedestrian crossing outside the bank. Cross Oak tree Lane and turn left to pass a row of shops. This is the old centre of Selly Oak.
The oak tree from which the suburb took its name stood in front of Selly Oak Place until 1909, when it was felled to ease traffic flow. There is a mural of the oak on the side of Sainsbury’s store. Follow the shop frontages round the corner into Bristol Rd and turn immediately right into an alley beside the former Police Station (No 86 c1911).
[12] Follow the alley across a car park and turn left into Lottie Rd. The small terraces hereabouts were built to house workers from Elliot’s factory at a time (1870s) when the area was sparsely populated. Elliot named the roads after his daughters - Lottie, Katie, Winnie. Walk along Lottie Rd to the T junction with Elliot Rd and turn left into it. The factory, which manufactured metal sheathing for wooden ships under patent from G F Muntz, fronted the road here but only the Manager’s House survives (far end).
[13] Walk along Elliot Rd and turn right into Bristol Rd. This is the worst part of Selly Oak’s high street, noisy, dirty and derelict, but it is not without interest as it contains the transport corridors - road, canal, railway - that drew trade to the area. Cross Dingle Road and continue past rough ground (rhs, with old sofas amongst the trees) and past the Birmingham Battery Offices on your left, draped with ivy (lhs 1870s, where sheet metals were battered into shape).
[14] Proceed along the A38 Bristol Rd (turnpiked in 1726) to the canal bridge (the Worcester & Birmingham reached here in 1795). Cross Bristol Rd at the pedestrian lights and turn right into it past the exposed end of the original railway viaduct (lhs 1876, abandoned when the railway was realigned). Continue beneath the realigned bridge and past the former Station Arms (rhs corner 1881, built to serve commuters) back to the Library (lhs).