The Black Sabbath tour

A walking tour of Birmingham highlighting the past haunts of Black Sabbath has been launched by super fan Rob Horrocks.

Crossroads of Sabbath is a one-man mission to spread the gospel about singer Ozzy Osbourne and the band he has come to regard as the most significant in rock history.

"People have always talked about the influence of the Beatles," he says.

“But I wonder if, in 100 years time, they will be talking about Black Sabbath more.”

1. We meet outside the Hare of the Dog pub in Franchise Street on the edge of Birmingham City University's Perry Bar campus.

Rob then switches on his hand-held ghetto blaster to play part of a track.

N.I.B. is the closing song of four on side one of the 1970 debut album Black Sabbath, and Rob says the lyrics are significant in respect of the walk:

Follow me now and you will not regret

Leaving the life you led before we met

2. Rob points at Birmingham City University campus to reveal where Ozzy Osbourne and lead guitarist Tony Iommi went to the long demolished Birchfield Road Secondary Modern School.

Then we turn towards Wellhead Lane to walk past the former Kynoch munitions factory from where test gunshots were often heard throughout the area.

Rob leads us alongside the wall Ozzy would have often walked past on the way to and from school.

3. At one point the fence has been pushed over to facilitate some ugly fly-tipping. The vastness of the derelict Kynoch site is astonishing. To our right is another industrial site Ozzy would have seen as a child – Tufnol Ltd.

4. We turn left down the A4040 Aston Lane. Close to Tesco is a small sign saying Lucas – a reminder of a vast company which employed thousands across the city's industrial heartland.

Looking ahead there’s Aston Hotel, but in the foreground is a zebra crossing which Rob compares to Abbey Road.

If only the Sab Four had been photographed walking across it!

Mindful of such accidents of history, Rob quotes Merseyside-born broadcaster Stuart Maconie’s view of Black Sabbath.......

5. Close to Witton Station there is yet more fly-tipping. Not a pleasant sight. Looking back across Witton Road, Rob points out the eastern way into the former Kynoch plant - built to purify oily and acid pickling waste before discharging it into the River Tame. 

Considering we already seem to have been walking for more than 15 minutes emphasises just how vast the site was – an example of the sheer power of Midlands' industry that Sabbath were to recreate on stage.

6. Along Manor Road we reach the corner of Station Road. A man comes out of the The Shiloh Pentecostal Church comes out to ask: "Are you Christians?"

This is the building where Ozzy Osbourne used to rehearse when it was a Methodist Mission Hall.

Rob says: “His dad had bought him a PA system for his 19th birthday that would cost about £3,000 today.”

7. At Station Road, we see the North Stand of Aston Villa's Villa Park home.

Turning right along Witton Lane we pass the former tram depot (which Prince Charles opened as a museum on his 40th birthday on November 14, 1988 and which has since relocated to Aldridge near Walsall) and stand outside the Aston Hotel, one of the many pubs in the area that would have been frequented by the band.

8. On the B4140 Witton Road is the Aston Pizza and Grill House, the latest reincarnation of the one shop Rob claims would have been selling fast food like chips back in the day.

9. After walking along Trinity Road we reach a shop on the corner of Lodge Road and buy refreshments from what would have been Ozzy's corner shop.

Rob turns round to walk back up Witton Road to reach the other end of Lodge Road out of courtesy to the residents in and around No 14.

There is no blue plaque to say this is where Ozzy Osbourne, the world's most famous Brummie, grew up.

En route, even more mattresses have been turfed out on to the pavement nearby but the road is otherwise generally quite tidy.

10. Rob tells us the former names of the Witton Road shops behind Ozzy's house – one of which Ozzy burgled, leading to a short spell inside Winson Green Prison. In an interview with The Big Issue in 2014 he said: "I tried a bit of burglary but I was no good at that. I didn't do any major burglary jobs. It was less than three weeks before I got caught. My dad said to me, that was very stupid. And I did feel very stupid. I didn’t pay my fine and I got put in jail for a few weeks. That was a short, sharp lesson. It certainly curbed my career in burglary."

11. At the corner of Witton Road and Prestbury Road is the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where the cross carvings in the stone caps of the pillars are eerily (but coincidentally, according to Rob) Black Sabbath-esque.

12. Soon we are walking past bass player Geezer Butler's former senior school, Holte Grammar, built in 1900.

It’s a remarkably Gothic building in keeping with anyone’s idea of a rock album cover.

But although it was recently renovated and turned into Kajans Hospitality and Catering Studio College - the only catering college dedicated to teaching Caribbean cuisine - it was closed down 12 months ago within its first academic year of opening.

The front garden has quickly become overgrown and one wonders if this will become another great, overlooked Birmingham building in danger of demolition.

13. On Albert Road is Ozzy's former junior school, Prince Albert – where he returned for a visit in 2009 as part of a promotional tour of his autobiography, I Am Ozzy, and left a signed copy for the library.

14. Victoria Road features an otherwise anonymous-looking grey-walled three storey house.

Part of a terrace called Friar Park Villas (1873), this is the house where Black Sabbath bass player Terry "Geezer" Butler grew up.

15. Standing on the crest of Selston Road, opposite Geezer's old house, you can see the skyline of central Birmingham.

Tony Iommi lived nearby on the long demolished Park Lane (c 1970) and Rob thinks he might have had a view of the city centre skyline from the back of his house.

16. From the corner of Selston Road and Park Lane, we can see our imminent watering hole, The Bartons Arms. Rob explains why his walk is called Crossroads of Sabbath.

He likens Tony Iommi's industrial accident – his left-handed playing style was crucially affected when he chopped the top of two fingers off his right hand on the day he had decided to leave his factory job – with the fabled US story of Robert Johnson’s Clarksdale, Mississippi story about how the legendary blues guitarist sold his soul at a crossroads to achieve success.

After disappearing and then seemingly becoming a better guitarist upon his return, Johnson died in 1938 at the age of 27.

His work reached a wider audience more than 20 years later with the 1961 release of an LP called King of the Delta Blues Singers. The members of Black Sabbath were playing blues before they found their forte.

17. At the Bartons Arms, we share Black Sabbath stories and enjoy a fine pint of real ale at a pub once used by stars from Laurel & Hardy and Charlie Chaplin.

"There is no doubt, as young men, that all of the members of Sabbath would have visited every pub in this area including this one," says Rob.

Rob presents an Evening Mail front page from July 8, 1968 when the midday edition headline was “Drug fine for pop group – four admit having cannabis.”

The report said: “All four members of a Birmingham pop group, The Mythology, appeared in court at Carlisle and admitted two charges of possessing cannabis. Each was fined £15.

“They were Anthony Frank Iommi (20) of Park Lane, Aston; William Thomas Ward (20) of Witton Lodge, Erdington; Christopher Smith (19) of Farm Road, Erdington and Neil Marshall (24) of Malleyclose Drive, Carlisle.

“All except Marshall were also given a conditional discharge. Marshall was put on probation for two years.

“The four young men apologised to the court for the trouble they had caused.

“The prosecuting inspector said the four had been arrested as a result of a routine check made on an individual who had been dealt with previously on drug charges.

“He said that drugs had been found in their possession in a house in Carlisle.”

18. We walk across the A34 High Street to Newtown Community Centre.

Black Sabbath held their first rehearsals here and wrote tracks for their seminal debut album, Black Sabbath (1970).

Months later in September 1970, Sabbath released their second LP, Paranoid, which topped the charts.

Rob says: "I love this parquet floor and think it should be preserved for all time – it's as significant as the now demolished place where Lennon first met McCartney, but it’s still here.

“I like to think that some of nicks in the floor were caused by Bill Ward’s drum kit."

In the film God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy’s car passes the Community Centre as he points to the building saying: “That’s where we used to rehearse.”

Tony Iommi also mentions the location on page 53 of his autobiography, Iron Man.

He wrote: 

“We booked a place in the Newtown Community Centre in Aston, across the road from a cinema, and started a whole new regime.

“Wicked World and Black Sabbath were the first two that were written during those rehearsals. We knew we had something; you could just feel it, the hairs stood up on your arms, it just felt so different.

“We didn’t know what it was but we liked it.”

The building is part of the late 1960s redevelopment of the area when Victorian housing was replaced by tower blocks and a shopping centre. When Black Sabbath first used it in 1968 and 1969 it was brand new.

19. Speaking of the Black Sabbath drummer, why has there been no visit to Witton Lodge to see where Bill Ward grew up?

“I just think it’s too far from the other three and the rest of the story to fit it in on foot as part of a walking tour,” says Rob.

“But the fascinating thing about Black Sabbath is that they are the world’s most successful rock band to have come from such a small area.”