This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
After the decline of the textile industry, mining, automobile production, in short, the Empire, place to a renaissance of the West Midlands which serves tourism magnificently well.
The Black Country. the balti. Jaguar. Shakespeare. And Cadbury. There are enough elements here to pique the curiosity of all travellers! There, it is the West Midlands, a county whose nerve center is Birmingham. Like other industrial epicentres in Britain, such as Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, the UK’s second-largest city has seen the post-World War II debacle — and it’s come a long way.
“It was a city of the Empire, the ‘City of a thousand trades’ and the workshop of the world, at the heart of the colonial project”, explains an exhibition which puts the Brummies (the inhabitants of Birmingham) in the spotlight. Surprisingly, it is presented in a sumptuous building, which looks nothing like a municipal library!
This library, famous for its rare collection of Shakespearean works, the iconic Selfridges store, centerpiece of The Bullring shopping complex and The Cube residential-shopping complex, designed by Ken Shuttleworth, who also designed the Gherkin, in London , are precisely part of the urban facilities that have changed the perception we had of the destination.
“After the relocation of manufacturing, Birmingham was seen as a city in decline. The culture has infused a sense of pride in citizens, but also in tourists, because who wants to visit a failed place? says Becky Fall, Head of Tourism at the West Midlands Growth Company. The result of a renaissance spanning three decades: in 2019, a record year, the economic impact of tourism in the region amounted to 13.1 billion pounds sterling (26.4 billion dollars).
The Commonwealth Games, which will take place there this summer and for which more than a million tickets have already been sold, “it’s a little window that opens to say ‘hey, we exist!’ participates in the movement of transformation”, maintains Mme Fall.
Of balti at the Peaky Blinders
You should also see how the Gas Street Basin, at the heart of Birmingham’s canal network, was rehabilitated. Four times more numerous than in Venice, these waterways contributed to its prosperity at the time of the industrial revolution and contribute to its attraction today, with pubs and cafes now occupying the beautiful brick buildings that surround them. border.
But Birmingham not only values its built landscape: the balti is also the subject of a “cult”… Born in the 1970s in the Balti Triangle, the stronghold of Pakistani immigrants around Ladypool Road, this culinary specialty based on meat, onions and spices takes its name of the container in which it is cooked over very high heat, very quickly, and which means “bucket” in Urdu.
“No, we don’t call it a curry, never ! Zafar Hussain, the chef of the Shabab’s restaurant, where I savor the dish, kindly reprimands me. And again no, “it does not initially come from Baltistan: it is a pure Pakistani-brummie ! says author Andy Munro, who has written several books about it.
At the time of slow travel, an advantage of the West Midlands is that you can easily travel there by train. From Birmingham, head for Cadbury World, an interactive museum about chocolate and the company founded by Quaker John Cadbury nearly 200 years ago.
“In the 1950s, the company’s heyday, 12,000 people lived and worked in Bournville,” says Colin Pitt, head of education at the institution. This was the first experience of social housing in the country. »
In Dudley then awaits us the Black Country Living Museum. Established in 1978, just 10 years after the last coal mine in the area closed, this fascinating open-air museum brings one of Britain’s earliest industrialized environments back to life. A disused colliery and a forge that evoke the Dudley “black by day, red by night” of yesteryear, a reconstructed period village, actors who bring it to life…
Here I am immersed both in the Germinal by Émile Zola and in the world of the Peaky Blinders, this Birmingham street gang that was the subject of a television series! In fact, the huge site is one of the main film sets of this story, which will continue on the big screen in 2023.
Of art and creativity
Between London and Birmingham, Coventry is another sphinx town. Prosperous in the Middle Ages thanks to weaving, it saw the automobile industry take off at the end of the 19th century.and century, says its fabulous Transport Museum. In a former cotton mill, Daimler got the ball rolling and paved the way for Rover, Jaguar and even the first turbojet engine.
In ashes after the Second World War (its old and new cathedral remind us), its first industry gradually delocalized, the small town is now betting on audacity and creativity – like a legendary citizen, Lady Godiva , and an activist artist who grew up there, Daniel Lismore. A major exhibition of his formidable sartorial fortresses, Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Takenis on view at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum until June 26.
Back in the English capital, and in order to complete an inspiring stay on the theme of reinvention, head to the Coal Drops Yard. In this old depot, the eight million tons of coal that supplied London annually passed through. Architect Thomas Heatherwick, the same one who designed the Vessel, the sculptural “shawarma” at the heart of the redevelopment of Hudson Yards in New York, has made it a spectacular recreational site.
“Build it and they will come” (“build it and they will come”), they said… Perfectly!
Our collaborator Carolyne Parent was the guest of Visit Britain.