Birmingham Heritage Week Cathedral Tour

This week is officially Birmingham Heritage week, a week dedicated to the history, architecture and stories of this most vibrant of cities. The week encompasses a wide range of events across the city. This can be guided tours of landmark buildings, expert tours, walking tours, art classes, quite literally anything. With many of the events also being free, this is one of the most anticipated weeks on the Birmingham calendar.

I always try to take part in at least one event during heritage week. In the past I took a guided tour around the Doug Ellis Woodcock swimming baths (amazing!), and attended a talk by Brutiful Birmingham about the magnificent, but now threatened architectural masterpieces of the Brutalist era. But this year I opted to look around one of Birmingham’s most iconic, and treasured buildings, St Phillips Cathedral.

Birmingham Cathedral

For a cathedral of the second city, Birmingham Cathedral is surprisingly small. This is because it was originally a parish church, built before Birmingham obtained city status, and originally almost acting as an overspill for St Martin’s in the Bullring as Birmingham grew. That said, it is a really lovely building, built in the English Baroque style, and with the most incredible stained glass windows that were famously designed by Birmingham-born pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones and his lifelong friend William Morris, famous for his work in fabric and textiles through his company Morris & Co.

The windows were recently subject to a restoration project, when visitors were able to take scaffolding tours, but are now totally available for viewing. They are simply stunning, and on a beautiful sunny day (like Monday was), the light just streams through and shows the richness of the colours used. I love the little facts that were revealed on the tour, like the fact that the fabrics created in glass in the windows actually show Morris & Co patterns.

You can find more about the windows and their restoration on this page here.

Other Key Features

This building is not just about the windows, magnificent as they are. The actual design is stunning, quite stark, almost plain in places, which surprisingly gives it a timeless appeal. The columns and other windows add more light to the building, and the Brutalist font is something to be seen and admired.

Birmingham Cathedral hosts tours all year around, so if you have missed the Heritage week events, you can still catch one. Click here for more information.

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