On Fox Hollies Road there are three tower blocks, each one 12 storeys tall. A stretch of parkland called Curtis Gardens lies between the blocks and the road, with trees and a playground. A gate with two pillars marks the entrance to what was the site of a Victorian manor house called Fox Hollies Hall. The hall was demolished in the 1930s. Near to the gate is a concrete play sculpture of what I used to think was a bird’s head, but is actually a fish. It was made by the sculptor John Bridgeman, whose play sculptures for children were common on Birmingham’s council estates that were built in the sixties as part of the city’s post-war regeneration. Sadly it is the only one to have survived. Play sculptures were a popular innovation from the mid-twentieth century through to the late seventies. Urban planner Gabriela Burkhalter describes them as “art that could be touched, climbed on and crawled through.”
