THE ominous heavy metal riffs of Black Sabbath are ringing out again with the imminent release of a new box-set – but fans rushing out to see the place that gives the collection’s headline album its name are bemused.

Because it’s not where you think it should be. The Brummie band moved the Worcestershire village of Headless Cross 180 MILES south to Sussex for the spooky video that promoted the Headless Cross album when it was released back in 1989.

If you want to see the ruins in which Sabbath played as day broke at the end of a bitterly cold night, you’ll need to head to the Benedictine Battle Abbey, by the Battle of Hastings site in East Sussex, seven miles from Hastings itself.

The Headless Cross video has just been spruced up and re-released to highlight the upcoming May 31 release of Anno Domini 1989–1995, collecting together albums the band made while Tony Martin was their singer.

Martin spent some time in the real Headless Cross, a village which forms part of Redditch, while on the path to fame. It boasted two churches – a since demolished Methodist church with a distinctive see-through spire, and the more traditional St Luke’s.

But neither was deemed spooky enough for the video, so Battle Abbey was chosen and, recalls Sabbath guitar hero Tony Iommi, sent shivers down the spine in more ways than one.

“It was so cold,” he says. “I remember Cozy Powell was desperately trying to keep warm because it was freezing cold and, of course, he had to hold his drumsticks.

“He had a bottle of brandy down by his kit. At the end of the night he was pissed because he’d had that many shots of brandy, trying to keep warm.

“We were all moaning that it was too cold because it really was bitter. Of all the nights we could have done it, they’d picked the coldest. They wanted to film us as it was getting light, and that meant we had to stay there for hours.”

Battle Abbey is managed these days by English Heritage. Although little remains of the original Norman abbey, many later monastic buildings survive, including the great gatehouse and the east range, with a vaulted undercroft.

The high altar of the church was placed on the spot where King Harold died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William the Conqueror led the Normans to victory, with Harold famously getting struck with that arrow in the eye.

The Grade I listed site includes the abbey buildings and ruins, a visitor centre with a film and exhibition, audio tours of the battlefield site, the monks’ gatehouse, a children’s discovery room and café, and an outdoor suitably themed playground.

There’s still good reason to visit the Headless Cross in Redditch, though. It was the birthplace of the late John Bonham, pictured above, the hard-hitting drummer who powered rock legends Led Zeppelin to world domination, and who was a friend of the Sabbath stars.

He was born at the midwife’s house at 84 Birchfield Road, where a blue plaque records his birth on May 31, 1948 – coincidentally 76 years before the very day the new Sabbath set is being released – and notes the part he played in 200 million album sales.

John died on September 25, 1980 in Windsor after a heavy drinking session. He was only 32 years old, and was buried at St Michael’s Church in Rushock, Worcestershire, close to which he had lived with his wife and children.

A memorial statue to John also stands in Redditch town centre, where an annual festival gathering of family, friends and fans takes place in his memory. Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant visited the sculpture shortly after it was installed.

Black Sabbath’s Anno Domini box-set comprises the remastered albums Headless Cross (1989), Tyr (1990) and Cross Purposes (1994) with Forbidden (1995), the latter remixed by Iommi, plus a booklet, poster and a replica concert book from the Headless Cross tour. 

Headless Cross was Sabbath’s fourteenth studio album, the band’s second album to feature frontman Tony Martin, the first to feature drummer Cozy Powell, and the only album with bassist Laurence Cottle.

For information on visiting Battle Abbey, see the English Heritage page. To learn more about the original Headless Cross and Redditch see Visit Worcestershire.

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