Tolkien's World

By a combination of circumstances, I found myself visiting Northampton at the weekend. The original intention was to go to a Star Wars convention, which was later cancelled (see previous blog) and to combine it with a visit to a football match at the Sixfields Stadium.

I decided to carry on with my original remaining plans, and watched Northampton Town beat Yeovil Town 3-0 (whilst just down the road their Rugby Union compatriots also defeated Montpelier 51-7 later that evening), and Sixfields is a pleasant little new stadium nestled in a grassy valley. But the most visually striking sight when passing through West Northampton is a giant oddity of a tower, that to all intents and purposes reminded me of something out of J.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

My first impressions were that it was some sort of communications tower on the lines of Birmingham and London's GPO Towers, or some sort of huge factory chimney - with windows - but in actuality, I discover it to be Northampton's Express Lift Tower, used originally for testing lift shafts, and now a listed building.

Curiously also, as a listed building it is one of the youngest of its kind - having been built as late as 1980. Perhaps it's appropriate, that the region of country that was the basis for Tolkien's "Middle Earth" (the Midlands) should have so prominent a construction. I almost expected Christopher Lee as Saruman to step out from the top.