THE Green Men of Birmingham was the title of the talk given by Mr Anthony Hayward on October 28. Nobody in the room quite realised how many Green Men there were looking down at us from over doorways and arches, from roof bosses, from the tops of columns, from over windows and in the decorative stonework of so many buildings.

We learned that from the earliest days of sculpturing in stone, artists have chosen to incorporate into designs of foliage an image of the human face, and a great many examples are found throughout Europe and even some in Asia.

In the UK alone, many cathedrals, including those of Birmingham, Worcester, Lichfield, and some 1,500 churches provide examples of hawthorn, oak and other leaf subjects framing a human face, possibly because a symbol of vegetation conveys an idea of re-growth, rebirth and resurrection.

But the style is not confined to churches, and from Victorian times there have been many countrywide examples of places such as colleges, libraries and council buildings decorated with beautiful designs of foliage including a face staring or peeping out among the "greenery". The art form was given fresh impetus by the discovery that it could be made from terracotta and therefore reproduced from moulds rather than laboriously carved, and you have only to look at some of the fine buildings in the Colmore Row, Edmund Street and Newhall Street areas of Birmingham to see examples of green men looking down at you.

Mr Hayward, who has published a book based on many years of studying Green Men, certainly aroused our interest in the subject.

We shall be looking at historical buildings with new eyes.

The next meeting of the society will be on November 25 when Tim Booth will talk about "The History and Development of Water Power in the Midlands" (with slides).