Birmingham

Birmingham: The Second City That’s Stopped Apologising

The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery holds the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the world. Edward Burne-Jones was born in the city; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais all had connections to Birmingham patrons and collectors who bought their work when London was still uncertain about it. The museum’s Victorian civic building, with its gas-lamp grandeur and grand staircases, is the right context for this kind of art. This is not a minor regional collection. It is the place to see Pre-Raphaelite painting.

The museum also holds the Staffordshire Hoard display: 3,500 pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver found in a Staffordshire field by a metal detectorist in 2009. It was the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered, and its origin is unexplained. Were the pieces stripped from weapons and armour after a battle? Tribute? A deliberate deposit? The experts don’t agree. The gold itself is extraordinary and worth the time.

Getting Your Bearings

Birmingham city centre is walkable in 30 minutes but the interesting areas spread outward. The canal network is the useful mental anchor: the city has more canal miles than Venice (this comparison is repeated constantly, it is also accurate), and Gas Street Basin is a practical landmark. Brindleyplace and the canalside around the ICC are corporate but pleasant for an evening. The Cube building across the canal has a rooftop bar with city views.

The Jewellery Quarter

Most visitors to Birmingham miss the Jewellery Quarter entirely, which is their loss. About 20 minutes’ walk from the city centre, this is where 40 percent of British jewellery is still manufactured, in workshops above shopfronts that have changed very little since the 19th century. The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter at 75-80 Vyse Street occupies a factory preserved exactly as it was when it closed in 1981: the tools on the benches, the work-in-progress pieces, the tea mugs. The tour is unhurried and genuinely interesting.

Food: Where Birmingham is Genuinely Exceptional

The Balti Triangle in Sparkbrook and Moseley is not a tourist attraction. It is a collection of restaurants serving real food to Birmingham residents, and it produces the best curry outside South Asia available in Britain. The balti dish itself originated here in the 1970s: a wok-cooked preparation served in a steel dish with naan bread, not rice. Al Frash on Ladypool Road, Shababs on Stratford Road, and Lasan in the Jewellery Quarter (slightly more upscale) are all reliable. The Balti Triangle was so culturally significant that Birmingham City Council gave it formal recognition.

Digbeth Dining Club runs street food events most Friday and Saturday evenings in the Digbeth area. Quality varies by vendor; overall standard is better than most similar events in the UK. Carters of Moseley and Purnell’s are the two fine-dining restaurants that appear in serious best-of-Britain conversations. Both require booking ahead. Both are worth it.

Getting Around

The West Midlands Metro tram connects Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton, with stops including the Jewellery Quarter. The city centre is best on foot; the distances are not large. Birmingham Airport (BHX) is 10 miles from the city centre; the Air-Rail Link shuttle to Birmingham International station connects to New Street in 8 minutes by fast train.

Digbeth and Moseley

Digbeth, just east of the city centre, is the emerging arts district: Victorian factory buildings housing studios, the Custard Factory arts complex, and some of the city’s better independent bars. It’s improving quickly from a rough base, which is the right combination for a developing arts area. Moseley is the suburb where Birmingham people actually choose to live: independent shops, good pubs, the Moseley Farmers’ Market on the last Sunday of each month, and Cannon Hill Park nearby. Both are worth a half-day.