University of Birmingham Blue Plaque; Edward Elgar

"Sir Edward Elgar, composer, became the University's first Professor of Music in 1905"

Cotteridge Park

Cotteridge Park is a place I’ve known about but only fully explored sometime this year. I was never sure of how to get there, which road I should go down, if it really was the park I could see from the train? Turns out it is the park I see from the train, it’s really easy to get to and I could quite happily wonder around it for a while.

Dear old Wiki tells me that the park is 22 acres in size and is one of the Victorian parks of the city. Didn’t know that. It also has a boulodrome and last year was awarded a Green Flag award!

I quite like this park because there are lots of boulders. I like boulders. I had to ask a couple of people if they would move so I could get a photo of the boulders. These boulders (this word looks silly now) are thought to be more glacial erratics! Lots of these scattered around the place. If all of the Cotteridge Park rocks are glacial erratics, that gives a total of 10 found so far, since I started the blog.

Every year there is a small free festival in Cotteridge Park, called CoCoMad. I went last year (it was very muddy) and it was BRILLIANT. A good day out despite the rain! There are stalls selling crafts and merch and food, a main stage and an acoustic tent area, a shopping trolley pageant and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Cotteridge has Anglo-Saxon roots and the name is first recorded in the early 1300s. There is quite an in-depth history written here which is worth a read if you want to know more!

Cotteridge Park is also on Twitter!

You can read more about it here and here.

More pics:

A pretty awesome willow tunnel!