Last week I visited Birmingham, England's second-largest city. I really enjoyed seeing the stained glass windows made by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris at Birmingham's Cathedral. St Philip's Cathedral started as a parish church and was made a cathedral in 1905. At the time the special windows were installed in the 1880s, it was still a parish church. During World War II the windows were removed and stored in Wales to protect them from any bombing.
Another highlight for me was the Victorian Radicals exhibit at the museum and art gallery. There was lots of Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Ford Maddox Brown, but I would have liked to see more by Millais. I did get to see The Germ (although a reprint). I learned about a few of the women Pre-Raphaelite artists, too, including Kate Elizabeth Bunce and Mary Jane Newill. I also toured Aston Hall, a Jacobean house built in the 1600s for Sir Thomas Holte and visited by both King Charles I and Queen Victoria. I especially liked the Long Hall and the Green Library.
And of course I visited the Library of Birmingham and the Secret Garden rooftop. The library is home to a language centre (Brasshouse Languages), a music library, the Parker Collection of Children's Books, the Shakespeare Library, and more. There are 36 branches, and on my visit to one of these, I picked up a neat little library zine which some famous authors have made in support of the Birmingham library service.
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The Last Judgement window
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| Birmingham Cathedral |
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| The Ascension window |
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| The Nativity window (notice it's set in a cave!) |
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| The Crucifixion window |
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| At Birmingham Cathedral |
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| Corporation Street |
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| Victoria Square (with Christmas market set up) |
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| Council House |
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| Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
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| My kind of exhibit! |
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| The Annunciation by Edward Burne-Jones |
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| Jasmine by William Morris |
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| Beauty and the Beast by John Dixon Batton (image from Birmingham Museum) |
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| The Keepsake by Kate Elizabeth Bunce (image from Google) |
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| Sleepe after Toile by Mary Jane Newill |
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| The Germ magazine |
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| View of Art Gallery and Gas Hall (image from Google) |
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| Tea at Boston Tea Party |
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| The courts across from Boston Tea Party |
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| Aston Hall (was never a sanatorium—really!) |
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| The Long Hall |
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| Window in the Long Hall |
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| The Green Library |
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| The Library of Birmingham |
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| Inside the Library of Birmingham |
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| The Secret Garden |
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| Secret Garden rooftop |
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| View from the rooftop |
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| Big Wheel |
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| Birchfield branch library |
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| Erdington branch library |
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| Save our libraries! |
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| Brum Library Zine |
And I had another significant reason for visiting Birmingham! More on that soon. Thanks for reading!
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