First time in…Birmingham
Sally Howard As Birmingham becomes the newest bmi destination with a route to Aberdeen, Voyager looks at the rebirth of the city THE 20TH CENTURY was hard on Birmingham. Its post-war rebuild – twisted concrete overpasses drawn up by a civic planner who was later sectioned – constricted the heart of England’s second city. Happily, as the [...]
Sally Howard
As Birmingham becomes the newest bmi destination with a route to Aberdeen, Voyager looks at the rebirth of the city
THE 20TH CENTURY was hard on Birmingham. Its post-war rebuild – twisted concrete overpasses drawn up by a civic planner who was later sectioned – constricted the heart of England’s second city. Happily, as the 21st century unfurls, Brum has now come back – and with a vengeance.
The new Bullring Shopping Centre [+44 (0)121 632 1500, www.bullring.co.uk] – a million square feet of commerce centred on the silver exoskeleton of Selfridges, designed by Future Systems – best signifies Brum’s rising ambition. Come here for the Selfridges Food Hall, where nattily dressed young couples (big labels and tiny jeans) rendezvous, and lunching ladies linger over sushi, prosecco and Morelli’s gelato.
Then cherry-pick from its 140 stores (all the favourites, from Apple to Zara) before emerging into daylight and walking the length of New Street – also filled with leading retail brands – and up the gentle gradient to Victoria Square, named for the monarch who presided over the city’s heyday (its centrepiece, a babbling fountain framing a naked female sculpture, is dubbed ‘the floozy in the jacuzzi’ by locals). To your left, the gleaming Corinthian columns of the Town Hall concert venue [+44 (0)121 780 3333, www.thsh.co.uk] – unveiled in 2007 after a 15-year restoration – are another reminder of the city’s industrial-age pomp. Allow a couple of hours for the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery [+44 (0)121 303 2834, www.bmag.org.uk], overshadowing neighbouring Chamberlain Square and home to a world-class collection of Pre- Raphaelite oils.
For history a little closer to home, head south along Hill Street to the Hurst Street Back to Backs [+44 (0)121 666 7671], an award-winning museum of everyday life housed in the only surviving example of the humble courtyard homes that once crowded the city. The museum walks you through the city’s history – from the restored atelier of an 18th century Jewish watchmaker to the 1960s home and shopfront of a Caribbean tailor.
It’s these many waves of immigration to Birmingham – most famously the Italians in the early 20th century and Kashmiris in the 1970s – that have made the city the cultural chow mein it is today. Stay in the Hurst Street area for its red and gilt-adorned Chinese Quarter. Or jump in a cab for the 10-minute ride south to Sparkbrook’s Balti Triangle, where hotplates hiss with garam masala and a waistband-busting spread can be had for £5.
Brummies are famed for partying hard. Start your night at one of the sharp-edged bars huddled in canal-side developments at Brindleyplace or The Mailbox [+44 (0)121 632 1000, www.mailboxlife.com], a former Post Office building that now bristles with restaurants and bars overlooking a tarted-up stretch of the Worcester- Birmingham canal. Afterwards, head out clubbing at the The Custard Factory; the epicentre of cool Birmingham, set in the atrium of a brilliant blue and yellow-painted former Bird’s Custard Factory [+44 (0)121 472 0777, www.factoryclub.co.uk].
Fall into bed in the small hours at Hotel du Vin [+44 (0)121 200 0600, www.hotelduvin.com], the Birmingham outpost of this brocaded boutique chain, or at Staying Cool at The Rotunda [+44 (0)161 832 4060, www.stayingcool.com], Birmingham’s iconic cylindrical 1960s high-rise reworked into sleek serviced apartments.
