Express & Star

Meet Bill, Bo and Baggins at Baggeridge Country Park

Three young goats have made a new home at Baggeridge Country Park – and have been named after a character from J. R. R. Tolkien's the Hobbit.

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Three new goats, named Bill, Bo and Baggins, have arrived at Baggeridge Country Park

After asking for name suggestions on social media, bosses at the Sedgley beauty spot chose Bill, Bo and Baggins – paying homage to the popular character from the novel.

The three youngsters arrived at Baggeridge earlier this month from Sandwell Valley Farm and have been settling into their new home well.

Posting on the Baggeridge Country Park Facebook page, they said: "Lots of great suggestions for names for the new boys, but we reckon that Bill, Bo and Baggins are the ones we will go with. Small, hairy and a taste for adventure so got the character and Tolkien was a local chap like the bagots."

The names come as it is said the region heavily influenced Tolkien during the writing of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tolkien was lead to Staffordshire in 1915 during the outbreak of war, He was stationed at Cannock Chase, before heading off to the battlefields in France, and also made himself a home in Great Haywood and Penkridge.

Three new goats, named Bill, Bo and Baggins, have arrived at Baggeridge Country Park

While in Birmingham, historians have linked Perrott's Folly tower in Waterworks Road and the Edgbaston waterworks tower to the two towers of Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith which give the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy its name.

While Isengard, the tower surrounded by a circle of land which was the stronghold of Sarumen the White could have been based on the 360-ft clock tower at Birmingham University, historian's believe.

Although there is no implicit link to the Black Country, many believe it could have inspired Mordor which was an area of mass industrialisation like the region would have been at the time.

Bill, Bo and Baggins can be seen at Baggeridge Country Park during the opening hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Sunday.