Birmingham was the “Workshop of the World”, the 1,000 trades, the 2,000 years of the metalworking, the Jewellery Quarter (the 5 square kilometres, the 500 jewellery businesses, the largest concentration of the jewellery manufacturing in Europe), the canals (the 56 km of the canal network, the more than the Venice, and the Gas Street Basin, the centre of the Birmingham canal system, and the most beautiful industrial landscape in the UK). The heritage Open Days, the second weekend of the September, the heritage Open Days is the annual celebration of the England’s heritage, the 4 days, the 5,000 venues, the free, is the essential Birmingham experience: the chance to enter the buildings that are the normally the closed, the tours that are the free, and the discoveries of the city that is the so much more than the “concrete and the Spaghetti Junction.” Here is your guide.

heritage Open Days in Birmingham

• The essential heritage Open Days experiences in the Birmingham: The Coffin Works (the Newman Brothers): the Jewellery Quarter, the factory that made the coffin fittings, the handles, the plaques, the shrouds, for the 100 years (the 1894–1998), and the most unusual museum in the Birmingham. The factory is the time capsule, the machinery, the dies, the stamps, and the sense of the workers who left on the Friday and never returned (the Newman Brothers closed in the 1998, and the factory was sealed until the museum opened in the 2014). The heritage Open Days entry is the free (the normally ~£8), and the essential strategy: the 10am first entry for the guided tour, the spaces are the limited. The Sarehole Mill: the Hall Green, the 18th-century watermill, the inspiration for the Hobbiton (the J.R.R. Tolkien lived the 100 metres from the Sarehole Mill as the child, the 1896–1900, the age of the 4–8, and the mill, the pool, the Moseley Bog, the “Shire”, were the inspiration for the Middle Earth. The heritage Open Days: the free, the tour, and the best literary connection in the Birmingham), the Birmingham Back to Backs (the National Trust, the 4 houses, the 1840s–1970s, the courtyard, the living-history museum of the working-class Birmingham, and the best small museum in the UK. The normally ~£12, the heritage Open Days, the free but the booking is the essential. The tickets are the released on the Eventbrite the 3 weeks before, and the sell-out in the hours). More UK →
• The Birmingham beyond the heritage Open Days, the essential sights: The Birmingham is the underrated city break, and the essential sights: the Library of the Birmingham (the 2013, the £189 million, the most beautiful modern library in the UK, the golden rotunda, the Shakespeare Memorial Room, the 1882, the most beautiful room in the city, and the view from the Secret Garden on the 7th floor, the best free view in the Birmingham), the Gas Street Basin (the canals, the narrowboats, the bars, the cafes, the essential walk on the sunny day), the Jewellery Quarter (the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter, the Smith & Pepper factory, the 80 years, the abandoned, the tour, and the best museum in the Birmingham. ~£7), the Balti Triangle (the Sparkbrook, the Sparkhill, the Balsall Heath, the Birmingham balti, the Pakistani-British curry cooked and served in the pressed-steel bowl, the balti, with the naan bread. The essential restaurant: the Shababs in the Sparkhill, the £12 for the balti and the naan, and the best curry in the Birmingham), and the Cadbury World (the Bournville, the chocolate, the Cadbury, the tour, the “liquid chocolate” cup, and the best family attraction in the Birmingham. ~£20, and the essential strategy: the book online, the weekends sell out)