This is the ideal park for the entire family, offering a variety of facilities including boating lakes, playgrounds, tennis courts, tropical greenhouses and nature conservation areas. It is also the home of the Midland Arts Centre. A walking/bicycling route winds through the grounds that has recently been extended. The park also plays host to a variety of concerts, performances and the annual Fireworks Fantasia.
The Rep is one of Britain's most successful and prestigious producing theaters, having achieved national recognition for quality and excitement. The theater offers an eclectic mix of productions. Past performances have included Noel Coward's Private Lives, Patrick Marber's award-winning Closer and a version of Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men. The theater also has a cafe bar, which is extremely popular in the evenings and on weekends, often offering live jazz.
Situated across Church Hill Road, the St Alphege Parish Church is a historic church that dates back to the 12th Century. Over a period of time, it was refurbished several times; the bells and the church's shire were renovated too. It is a beautifully restored religious space and its ancient organ pipe organ, stained glass windows that belong to different time periods and the overall architecture is worth exploring. Apart from that, this church is home to community functions, choir concerts, youth groups, sermons, lectures and similar events.
Housing one of the world's finest collections of Pre-Raphaelite art, with works by Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hunt, Birmingham's principal museum and gallery is located in a stunning Victorian building. The museum displays works by British and European artists, along with collections of ceramics, sculpture, silver and stained glass. You can also find archaeological, ethnographic and local history exhibits, including Egyptian mummies.
The Black Country is a large industrial area to the north-west of Birmingham and this museum is a reminder of how things used to be here 100 years ago. It comprises many historic buildings, taken down from elsewhere and re-erected to make an authentic town of a century ago. Highlights include an old-fashioned funfair, a narrowboat ride and a trip down a coal mine, light is deliberately kept to the levels that would have been experienced by the miners. All children and adults can take a lesson in an 1840s school and tour round a Victorian sweetshop, chemist's, nail-making shop and stables, among many other exhibits.
This 80-hectare (200-acre) safari park is located less than a 60-minute drive from Birmingham. It will take you about an hour to drive through the animal reserves, where you can see elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, monkeys, wallabies and tigers. The amusement park has many different rides, and a wristband ticket that gives you access to all of them. Other attractions include a seal aquarium, reptile house and sea lion show. There are also plenty of themed places to eat and buy souvenirs.
Birmingham City Center, like mentioned in the short description is certainly a business paradise for all. Having said that, this center is divided into seven areas, City Center Core being the main one and hence the name. The rest being Greater Convention Center Quarter, Digbeth Millennium Quarter, Bull Ring Markets Quarter, Jewelery Quarter, Gun Quarter and Aston Triangle. So, from production of jewelery and firearms to your daily shopping, it all happens here. A must drop by especially if your in this metropolitan city of Birmingham.
The epicenter of the Industrial Revolution, Birmingham was once known as the 'City of a Thousand Trades'. A master of reinvention, the city has shed its once gritty, industrial vibe and adopted a more contemporary, cultural outlook with institutions like the City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, International Convention Center, and Coffin Works paving the way for cultural exploration. Georgian-era landmarks like St. Paul’s Church, Victorian-era Law Courts and the Neo-Gothic St. Martin’s Church offer a glimpse of a bygone era, while the Selfridges Building and Library of Birmingham serve as a modern symbol of the city's evolution. With a vibrant dining, theater and nightlife scene, the city offers much along its canal-lined streets and is a powerhouse of modern British life.
Birmingham has a long tradition of non-conformist religion, and this fine building stands as a monument to that tradition. It beautifully complements the Victoria Law Courts (almost opposite), as it too is in terracotta; its tall spire is a major landmark. Friezes in the doorway depict scenes of preaching and of firefighting. There are regular Sunday services and the Chinese Christian Church also holds its services here.
Perhaps more closely resembling a totem pole, this enjoyable and unmistakable modern sculpture stands as a memorial to Birmingham industrialist James Watt. The obelisk features a large block of stone, on top of which is another with the crude beginnings of a carved human head. On top of that is a third block, with more recognizable features, then another, which is still more sophisticated. The final head, at the top of the pile, is the smallest and is recognizably that of James Watt. The Wattelisk is located in front of the new Queen Elizabeth Law Courts, just off Corporation Street. Open everyday.
A real architectural gem, the foundation stone to this beautiful terracotta building was laid by Queen Victoria herself in 1887. It's not to be confused with the modern Queen Elizabeth Courts in nearby Dalton Street: not that you could confuse the two. This monumental edifice is lavishly decorated with fine sculptures and prompted a rash of terracotta buildings elsewhere in the city. The russet architectural marvel is as inviting as it is exotic. It is now home to the city's Magistrate Court
Placed in Old Square in the city center, this statue honors comedian Tony Hancock who was born in Hall Green, Birmingham in 1924 and tragically committed suicide in 1968. Hancock was the archetypal "man in the street" and his radio and television programs, Hancock's Half Hour, are seen as classics of British comedy. The monument itself is of a modern style; a huge flat image showing Hancock's face with some quotations around the statue base. It was unveiled in 1996 by Sir Harry Secombe.