Solstice Pilgrimage to Spaghetti Junction

 

Photograph by Rachel Henaghan - used with permission.

On 21st June 2025, the day of the summer solstice, Walkspace's* Andy Howlett and I led a pilgrimage to Spaghetti Junction. This is one of several midsummer walks that have been run by Walkspace and Andy, but the first that I've been part of leading. Not only is the solstice one of my favourite times of year, I've been exploring under Spaghetti Junction for over twelve years, as well as along the River Tame and its tributaries which flow beneath it. I'm fascinated by the deep history of sites, and this place has a particularly layered past. I also love to delve into the linguistic archaeology of a place, and the Spaghetti area is an especially rich mine to excavate. I explored some of this in my INTERCHANGE zine (see here), but our Pilgrimage allowed for a bit more mining. 

At the beginning of the walk, I handed out my zine and a rag of cloth. 

Photograph by M. Patel - used with permission.

These were my walk readings:

ENTRANCE TO THE INTERCHANGE

Ancient people believed the land, this land, wasn’t just land – it was overlain with another realm – teeming with spirits and unseen companions. This co-habiting world was called the Otherworld.

I propose - playfully - that if the Otherworld still lingers, its veil is thin here, beneath the tangle of Spaghetti Junction.

In the ancient world, reverence to the otherworldly was made tangible in multiple ways.
• Standing stones were great megaliths of devotion dragged across the land to a sacred site.
• Venerated trees were also significant.
• There were also Wēoh (Anglo Saxon word), which were shrines situated on ancient routeways for travellers.

Today, we find all of these.

This is Salford– a meeting place of four river routes.
An ancient watery Interchange.

The River Tame is beneath us; Tame being a Celtic word for Dark. 
Near here three brooks meet it. Hockley, Hawthorn, Rea. Sites where several waters met were sacred, revered as protective, as the flowing waters prevented the passage of bad spirits, so formed pockets of safety where water routes meandered and looped. 

The Sal-ford was an ancient crossing point of the River Tame, a place where the land was gravelly meaning that neither feet nor wagons would get snagged in river mud. The Gravelly Hill, above, reminds us of the old strata of the land.

I mentioned, before, venerated trees, and here we find willow circling us - a water-loving tree representing sorrow and thresholds. Apt for this threshold, where the old waters have been made subservient to the Great God Interchange, above. 

This land was anciently willow-rich. The River Rea flows up to meet the Tame through Saltley.
From Old English sealt (meaning “willow” by some interpretations), and lēah (meaning “clearing, glade”), Saltley might be read as “willow clearing.” 

Salford may also echo the word sallow - an older name for willow - though its early name Scrafford suggests something else. A ‘cave crossing’ - as scraef meant caves in Old English. But Scrafford became softened and diluted over time.
But we will return to the caves at our next stop.

In folklore, water is a portal between this world and the Otherworld. Willow’s affinity with water strengthens its role as a guardian of crossings, not only the ancient Salford crossing, but at this crossing point into the cavernous world of the Gravelly Hill Interchange.

Photograph by M. Patel, showing artwork by Bill Drummond.

THE ANCIENT INTERCHANGE

This section I liken to the concrete womb of the Interchange. Like the acoustic environment of the womb, the rhythmic and constant rumble of traffic above echoes through this space.

It is also a place where there may have been a very ancient interchange ritual for travellers. The leaving of something in exchange for something else. 

Up until Spaghetti Junction was built, somewhere behind this wall, were the Salford Caves – real caves, carved perhaps by an old bend of the River Tame. But they were deepened by human hands. Enlarged. Purposely altered.
The first written record is from the 1400s, but they were likely ancient even then.

They weren’t homes. No one lived in them. They were too damp, too odd.
But in many cultures, caves were sacred entrances to the Otherworld.
Sometimes otherworldly beings flowed from caves, and at other times offerings could be left to those beings.

At significant crossing points, like the Salford crossing of the Tame we passed near to, such offering sites were called Wēoh – shrines for travellers leaving objects in exchange for a safe journey.
It is purely speculative, but these caves may have been such an offering site. 

Today, the spaghetti roads above rest on their concrete megaliths to form new cavernous realms.
Vast, echoing. Accidental chapels.
The rumble above becomes a chant.
And, perhaps, the old beings might still be communed with here.

THE VEIL BETWEEN WORLDS

This is Hawthorn Brook – one of the three small brooks which flow into the River Tame along this short stretch. 

This brook, squeezed and buried beneath the canal and road, re-emerges here, free for just a moment.
It’s small. Quiet. But it holds presence.

Its name calls to mind the hawthorn tree – also called whitethorn - a tree of edges and borders.
It often grew alongside its darker twin, the blackthorn. 
These thorny trees marked old field edges, ancient boundaries. They guarded thresholds.

Water too is a liminal element - ever-moving, ever-changing, often seen as a barrier or threshold in folklore.

So, both hawthorn and water are guardians of the boundary - together they mark the edge of one world and the beginning of another.  

An ancient binding of water and hawthorn comes with Raggedy Trees, which were (usually) hawthorns and stood at sacred springs, wells, and other healing waters.

These trees would have RAGS (known as clooties) tied to their branches; strips of cloth that would hold hopes of healing and transformation. As the rag disintegrates, the healing transpires.

On such trees, these man-made leaves are wish-like, bound to the tree, entwined with its shape, fastened tight. A tangle of the tangible and the otherworldly. An Interchange between the physical and spiritual worlds.

When we go down to the grove, look around.

You may see plastic and other detritus caught on brambles and branches –
Urban clooties. Modern offerings.

These hang wisp-like in an accidental cave. Not placed with reverence, perhaps, but then, maybe they hold the hopes of the brook.

This place – this torn-off sliver of murmuring water – may not be a holy well or spring.
But it acts like one, if you let it.
A crack between worlds. A sacred mess.
An echo of ancient exchange.

Above us, ribbons of motorway twist and loop.
Below, the old rivers still flow.
Both are Interchanges.
Both carry travellers, one physical and one of ancient spirits.
Both offer a crossing-point between where we have come from, and where we are going.

At the exposed part of Hawthorn Brook, the pilgrims of the walk could tie their "clooties", their rags, to the trees. These are biodegradable, but Andy and I will return to collect them on the Autumn Equinox.

*Walkspace is a co-operative of artists and creatives in the West Midlands who are intrigued by walking in all its forms.