Have you ever noticed this cheerful chappie when walking down Bournville Lane from Bournville Station towards Stirchley Library?
Or his sleepier companion – dreaming beneath a flourish of scrolling leaves, and echoing the green men that gaze from church nooks and crannies across Britain and Europe?
During Heritage Week (12-21 September), local artist Jen Dixon led a walk exploring Stirchley’s architectual flora – those stone flowers and leafy faces hidden in plain sight. It was an excercise in looking up, and noticing the overlooked details we miss in daily life.
The two faces appear on one of several surviving, intricately adorned cornice brackets between the shops and houses. Each is slightly different from the next, yet each share a common design: from the bottom up, a softly scrolled foot; a swag of fabric where fruit and flowers nestle, pinned by a single bloom; and two decorative panels alive with leaves, petals, and the expressive faces that watch over the street.
You may have passed them a hundred times – but have you ever seen the faces?
Nearby, you might also have spotted one of the three cartouches (two pictured below) that adorn the corner buildings of Bond Street and Regent Street, each inscribed with Bournville Market.
This was unlikely a “market” in the sense of an indoor hall. Instead, the term probably described this row of shops – a local commercial hub for the growing community. Around 1900, with the Cadbury factory newly established nearby and the Bournville Green shops not yet built, this would have been the place to buy household essentials and everyday treats.
Right: Bond Street – 1900 design. The design opposite reads 1899.
Many of the cartouches and pediments feature scrolling acanthus leaves, a classical motif symbolising enduring life and beauty to the Victorians who commissioned these buildings. Alongside them appear stylised oak leaves – signifying strength and civic virtue – and vines and grape leaves, representing plenty and conviviality.
But have you ever spotted this sharp-toothed creature (below) on Bond Street?
Or this mischievous grotesque (below again), peering down from the brickwork?
Such carvings borrow from the medieval tradition of grotesques and gargoyles – half-comic, half-protective spirits that keep watch over buildings and passers-by.
And take a closer look at the pediment on Regent Street (below). There’s a stern leafy-bearded gentleman gazes out across Bournville, a silent observer for 125 years. He is reminiscent of the Oak King, a pagan symbol who rules the waxing year (from midwinter to midsummer). His counterpart, the Holly King, rules the waning year (from midsummer to midwinter). Their eternal cycle mirrors the turning seasons, echoed in the carved foliage that flourishes around him.
He is accompanied by a more subtle, possibly female, face situated in the centre of the pediment, too.
All these faces and forms – and many more besides – reveal themselves simply by looking up.
By pausing, by noticing, by attending to the quiet ornament of everyday streets, we find traces of the imaginative life that once animated even the humblest shopfront.