Located in the west Midlands of England, Birmingham is a city of the Industrial Revolution, and at one time was known as the ‘workshop of the world’. Just 200 kilometres from London, the city is a major transport hub of motorways, rail and canal systems, and home to the well known motorway junction nicknamed ‘spaghetti junction’. Reputably Birmingham is Englands’ second largest retail centre, with the country’s busiest shopping centre being the ‘Bullring’. The city centre is home to more canals than Venice, due to its Industrial Revolution legacy, and has many places of interest for the visitor.
In the 16th century it was a market town of some industrial worth, surrounded by forests and common land; in the 17th century it was an important centre for manufacture of arms for Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentary forces; but the 18th and 19th centuries brought rapid expansion of peoples, trades and crafts to the town, to the extent that Queen Victoria declared it to be a city, and it grew into the second largest in Britain. The downside though, was a lot of shoddy house building, dirt and ugliness. Since then however, the city has been transformed, with the best of the old being retained alongside many new developments. Amongst the old is the Town Hall, intended as the city’s concert hall, and based on the temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. St Philip’s Cathedral, built in 1715 in the English Baroque style, and St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, built in 1841 and the first of its kind since the Reformation, are other remnants of the past worthy of note. The Great Western Arcade is completely Victorian: brown wooden shop fronts topped by a wrought-iron fence and ornamental lamps fronting a row of coloured arches. More recent buildings include the ultra-modern library housing something like a million volumes and a wealth of prints and pictures, Baskerville House the city administrative offices, the Hall of Memory, a small octagonal temple to the many who died during the two world wars and the post office with its attractive tower. Modernisation is most noticeable around the Bull Ring, where the historic marketplace has been changed beyond recognition with new roads and office blocks.
Other sites, in the city, worthy of mention:
Aston Hall, a Jacobean mansion with fine carved fireplaces, is now a museum left just as it was when the Holte family lived there.
The City Museum and Art Gallery has everything you could wish to see of Man and Nature: a 7th century Buddha; paintings, tapestries and sculptures; a coin collection including exhibits from countries where shells and axes were used as currency; ceramics jewellery, anything you could imagine!
The Council House, built in the 19th century as a pat on the back for Birmingham becoming the workshop of the world.
The City canals, which have been restored by the city, and now provide miles of towpath walking.
The Museum of Science and Industry with its Birmingham made bicycles, 125 ton ‘City of Birmingham’ train, steam driven machinery and much besides.
Other places of interest within 30 kilometres:
The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, a reconstruction of a Victorian working village, complete with cottages, pub, canal, pithead etc. You can even take a canal ride into the eerie Dudley Tunnel.
Cadbury World in Bournville, telling the story of chocolate from AD600 and the history of the Quaker John Cadbury experimenting to make a chocolate drink as an alternative to alcohol!
The National Motorcycle Museum at Stonebridge.
Baddesley Clinton, a moated manor house and garden, built in the 15th century and little changed since 1634.
Packwood House and garden with notable topiary, some representing the ‘Sermon on the Mount’.
Did you know that – a flight of 13 locks, built end to end, used to raise the canal barges 40 feet into the heart of Birmingham’s industrial area?
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