James Tucker in Cov

Digbeth is just to the south of the Bullring in Birmingham, and is an old industrial area. It's still largely full of garages, warehouses and car rental places. The central feature of it all is the colossal set of railway arches marching out of the city through Digbeth. The neighbourhood is built around them, and there are businesses inside the arches themselves, both in the piers as you pass through under the railway, and also odd, sometimes makeshift structures built in and around the arches. Overall, Digbeth is pretty grim, but like most of the city, there is potential for gentrification in the complex of brick warehouses. The one place (one street, really) that seems to have really gone for it is called the Custard Factory- it reminds me of Yorkville in Toronto, actually. There are a couple of vintage shops, music stores, a vegetarian cafe, several art galleries and a couple of large clubs. There are a couple of new, somwhat gaudy buildings in there, as well as some debatable sculpture. The only indication from the main street of all of this is the brightly painted warehouse walls, as the newer buildings are hidden around corners.
As for the rest of Digbeth, there is little in the way of retail business outside of a couple pubs (one dating from 1368) and clubs, but here and there are some interesting proto-hippy sort of cafes and whatnot scattered through the area. It doesn't look likely to explode into the next exciting place, but clearly people are trying. And what's there doesn't look likely to go away.

One of the things Birmingham is trying to make itself known for is its canal network. The canals run through the centre of the city, meeting in a couple of places right downtown. The canals were used before trains to transport goods to and from the factories of Birmingham, and were therefore essential to the growth of the city as a centre of industry. They connect to the network of canals that run across the United Kingdom. Stratford and Oxford are both on canals that connect rather easily to Birmingham.
The Gas Street Basin (right) is the centre of the whole network, where a couple of different canals meet. There are a number of narrow-boats there, and it passes under clubbing district of Broad Street (above left). At the bottom is a boat roundabout to handle the traffic-- something I've never even heard of before.
The canals were private property, and were run by separate companies, in the manner of the railways in a later era. As a result, there are few ways in an out of the network, and even then the entrances are usually tucked away in the form of small doors, or stairs off the side of bridges. As the canals are also lower than the average street level, they form in many places a sort of parallel city you can slip into, visible off the occasional bridge, or down an alley. But, of course, Birmingham is trying to revitalise itself, and the canals are a natural point to build new development. At the moment, it's rather like the Waterfront in Toronto, with cultural institutions springing up beside sushi places and new bars. At the Mailbox and Brindleyplace (left), on opposite sides of the Gas Street Basin, the process is complete, and they are probably amongst the nicer places in Birmingham, if all very new and shiny.
Below is the aforementioned traffic island (outside the National Indoor Arena), and to the right, the canal system heading off into the Jewellery Quarter down a system of locks, and a more low-key development of condos built around them.

So I also wandered over to Oxford this week, and spent a day. I am vaguely familiar with the city, but did a wander around some of the more obvious places. As school is in session, most of the colleges were closed to us, but there's still enough to see. I put a special emphasis on Saxon towers (the old church tower I climbed, the remains of the castle/prison, the city walls-kinda). The city block with the bulk of Hertford College and New College is spectacular. The Turf tavern and an old B & B are nestled in tiny alleys between them, and near-invisible from the street. And then, once inside New, one gets an idea of how huge the complex is. Within the college (see picture at right) are the substantial remains of the city wall, an old church, and a wooded mound. This mound is the remains of a mass grave of plague victims, and I am told (by history students, not epidemiologists) that the Black Death may well be active within the pile still. Which makes the benches on top a nice touch, so you don't have to sit on plaguey grass. Apparently, if you stand at the bottom and clap, the mound squeaks. Interestingly, this pile would have been inside the old city walls at the time, I think, whereas I would have opted for 'outside'. Hindsight's 20/20, 600 years on. Also, like York, everyone in Oxford owns a bike, and tears around town on it. It's a nice change from the urban assault course that most of Birmingham resembles.

It's been reading week, and I've been getting around England some to see the sights I've missed so far. By far the most important place on my list to me was Durham, up in the North-East of England. It was a three-hour train ride, and I travelled rather more than half-way across the country to get there (passing by another of my favourite northern citys- York- on the way, and was lucky to be able to see the river and Minster from the window).
Durham has been a major religious site since the 900s, the final resting place of the body of St. Cuthbert, chased away from his grave by Vikings (legally, in some respects, he's both alive and a major landlord). The Normans built the current cathederal and castle in an astoundingly short time (1080s to 1130s), and the whole city is on a peninsula in the river Wear. The Bishop of Durham was also the holder of Cuthbert's lands and a feudal lord, with the title Prince-Bishop. He only gave up the title in 1832, when he turned his castle over to found Durham University. The town itself is tiny-you can walk into the countryside in 15 minutes- with only about 5 streets all leading from one of the three old bridges (the Elvret bridge has an uphill slant, interestingly enough) to the market square, which is for some reason adorned with sculptures of local birds, like Puffins, and, oddly, monkeys. The personal belongs of a three-foot tall Polish nobleman, who lived in Durham until he was 94 are kept in the town hall. All of this is on some immensely steep hills, and many buildings are 2 stories at the front, and 6 or more at the back, with wonderful little alleys running from street to street, which helps with a sense of discovery (see left of middle picture). A nice old teashop, Rumbletums, is in one of these tiny, near-vertical alleys, but I missed its closing.
But for all that, the main thing about Durham is the monumental cathederal, with its immense columns, twin towers at the front, all stacked next to the castle on the top of a cliff. The view from the top of the main tower is amazing, and the close is a perfect little world unto itself. The iconic view of the west front (top left) is from an old mill, which is now the University's boathouse, and the whole thing is a world heritage site. I've run out of superlatives, but Durham has probably given York a run for its money for my favourite English city. Go if you can.
PS.- You may have noticed from the photos, but Durham was the first time I've gone out exploring where the weather's been nice. Sun and everything! It's typical of the weather around here, hovering around 8-10 degrees, higher with sunlight.

So, as part of my MA, I have had to go to Stratford to use the archives and documents of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Last week I had to work up a bibliography about the town and its pubs (my choice of topics). So, learning about the town, and then being able to walk around the town saying "Ah, the Cage pub used to be there" and such. As far as I can tell, Stratford has one of the best collections of old Tudor buildings, many of them associated with Shakespeare and his family (ie. the St Edward School, above left).There are other famous connections, though, as Harvard House (a mid-sized house with wonderful carving, right) was the early house of the man who would later 'found' Harvard University. And, of course, the whole place is lovely. I had lunch at an old pub (built 1660, or at least some of it) across from the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatre. It's technically the Black Swan, but during the Second World War American soldiers camped across the river, and referred to it as the "Dirty Duck", which is how it's still largely known. Plus, it's where all the RSC actors hang out, apparently, so there's considerable star power associated with it (ie. Lawrence Olivier, Ian Richardson).

The main thing about Bournville (about 5-6 Km from the University) is the name Cadbury. George and Richard Cadbury set up a chocolate factory here in 1879. From then on, they both expanded their works, and, due largely to their Quaker beliefs, set about making life better for their workers. The entire neighbourhood was built for workers, and the houses are still under the protection of a Trust. Most of the houses were built around 1900-1910 from what I could see, but the whole project is still running strong. Some of my best pictures are blurred, but they show a postcard of an English village, with one exception-- there are no pubs.

I'm told the workers still join in things like the factory cricket team. At any rate, the clubhouse for the Bournville Cricket Club (left) is both on the factory grounds, and the biggest clubhouse of its sort I've seen. Behind it, but not really visible, is the large Baths built by the Cadburys (there is a war memorial commemorating more than 200 of its workers who fell in the First World War) and the local train station, painted in Cadbury Purple.

One of the other remarkable things the Cadburys did was move two old Tudor-era houses to the area, on the edge of its central park. One is a barn-like structure from north of Birmingham, the other is Selly Manor (right) (Selly Oak is the neighbourhood between me and Bournville). It's relatively small for a manor, but it has three floors, several additions, and even a priest hole-- a hidden compartment a Catholic priest could hide in when the Tudor soldiers came calling. Many of the great houses around here have such things, and I'll probably get around to doing a post just about them. Anyhow, it was Sunday, and everything was closed, so there'll be more from Bournville.

Kings Norton is an area about 10 km South of the University. It has been a town apparently since time immemorial, and became part of Birmingham when that city expanded in the 19th Century. I went there yesterday to have a look at the old Tudor Inn and Grammar School (on the second floor of the building to the left), which are on opposite sides of the Churchyard (St. Nicolas's Church is impressive too). Apparently Queen Henrietta Maria stayed in the Inn during England's Civil War, on her way South with troops raised in Yorkshire, while the troops stayed in what is now King's Norton park.

The Saracen's Head (right) is on the same side of the churchyard as the Green, an ancient open space, where Prince Rupert's troops were attacked in the Civil War, and where there is still a centuries-old fair. On the same side as the school is the park and the canal. Below are pictures of the inside of the schoolhouse (through a keyhole!)and the churchyard. In 2004 both the Grammar School and Inn won a BBC competition to find properties in need of restoration, and are supposed to be given about 3 million pounds from the lottery heritage fund. The school looks pretty good, but the Inn is a bit of a wreck inside.

This blog isn't particularly to share with the world my opinion on this, that, or the other (though I'm sure that it'll find itself on here anyhow) but to keep people up to date on what I am doing on my year abroad. So, there won't be much on here until I do something interesting.