Worcester & Birmingham Canal

Birmingham

It’s Britain’s second largest city after London, it reeks of the Industrial Revolution and it gave us the Midlands Enlightenment with the men and women of the Lunar Society. The age of iron and steel and steam was forged here by people like Boulton and Watt and the questioning of man’s place in the world was examined by Erasmus Darwin and Joseph Priestley. Another famous son, J.R.R. Tolkien later gave us Middle Earth, many locales of which were inspired by the countryside.

The city is also the center of the vast canal network in the Midlands and it boasts more miles of canal than Venice. Since the restoration of the canal network the city has embraced its heritage with lots of canal side development, including the Brindleyplace (named after engineer James Brindley) retail center. The canals are quite convenient to the Birmingham Art Museum, the symphony and several events centers. You can find out what’s on in Birmingham at the official visitor’s website.

Unfortunately heavy bombing during World War II has erased a lot of the city’s history, but the canals still make a connection to the past. Much of what was lost was replaced by large, bland construction giving Birmingham the moniker of the “Concrete Jungle.” Recently, however, city planners have worked on redeveloping the inner city, making it very walkable with lots of shopping and events venues. I don’t how attractive some of it is, but you certainly wouldn’t call something like the Bullring bland.

City center

Very close to Gas Street Basin you’ll find Brindleyplace, the Mailbox (an old postal sorting facility), the National SEALIFE Centre aquarium, Town Hall & Symphony Hall, the BarclayCard Arena and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Just a little further east is the Bullring shopping area with the rather bizarre Selfridges.

Getting around

There’s no equivalent to the London Underground in Birmingham, but the city is served by bus and surface rail. The Birmingham City Council website has information about your various options, but the easiest is walking. As with many UK cities, the most convenient way to get a sense of the city is to take one of the bus tours. The Visit Birmingham website also has several maps you can download to give you a sense of the city.

You will have to go on foot  to visit the Jewelry Quarter because the canals don’t go there. Jewelry’s not my thing, so I can’t tell you anything about that part of the city, although it is interesting that the area is the largest concentration of jewelry businesses in Europe and goes back 250 years. It also has the only surviving Georgian square in the city.

There is some bike sharing in the Birmingham, although it’s nowhere near as extensive as “Boris Bikes” in London. As far as I can tell, there are only two Brompton Bikes docking stations in the city.

Cuisine

You might notice that the Google map that starts this page has no restaurants listed for Birmingham, mainly because the map would be so crowded as to be meaningless. But I thought I would mention the authentic Brummie (that’s what Birmingham residents are called) cuisine, the balti. It’s a perfect pairing of east meets west and is very appropriate for a city with such a high ethnic population.

Boat hires

Unfortunately Birmingham is not a great place to start a narrowboat trip because as far as I know, there are no boat hires in Birmingham apart from a few day boat/party boat companies. That’s a shame because the city is served by a number of train stations that would make it pretty convenient. I haven’t added the train stations to the map because of this.

Festivals

Although it would be pretty late in the season for a narrowboat vacation, Birmingham is famous for its military tattoo that’s held in the BarclayCard Arena in November. (I really included it just so I could embed the cool tattoo video.) At the other extreme of the calendar is the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, supposedly the second largest in Europe after Dublin. Slightly closer to boating weather is the St. George’s Day festivities in April. Smack dab in summer in July, however, is Birmingham’s Mela, a giant Asian music festival, or in June 2016 (it’s held every two years) is the Caribbean festival. Fall is my favorite time for boating, however, and at the beginning of September is the more laid back Moseley Folk Festival. And Birmingham’s Comedy Festival is in October.

I really can’t include everything to do in Birmingham because it would go on for pages and pages. I have to confess that when I go to the UK I always want to go to London, but after preparing this tour of the Worc & B’ham I must admit Birmingham is worth another visit.