April 2005

In April we made two excursions, one to Birmingham for some shopping but mainly to visit the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for yet another glimpse of Pre-Raphaelite and other Victorian paintings. A little later in the month, we toured the historic working estate of Shugborough in nearby Stafford, accompanied by Kassie's grandparents who were visiting from Montreal. The five of us had made an aborted attempt to visit Shugborough in October 2003, only to find it closed for the season.

Birmingham

Like Manchester, Birmingham has been recently rejuvenated. The Bull Ring, once famous for its Chartist-influenced riot in 1839, now boasts traditional open-air market stalls and an indoor shopping centre. During our afternoon visit, we concentrated our time on a couple of shopping streets, Victoria Square (pictured left), Centenary Square where Kassie had great fun running from one corner of the world to another (see photo bottom left), and the Museum and Art Gallery which not only contains a remarkable collection of Victorian paintings (by Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Rossetti, Millais, Burne-Jones, Hunt, Brown, Solomon, Hughes and Bunce, as well as the classicists Leighton and Watts) but also collections related to archaeology, ethnography, and local and industrial history, much of it interactive.

Shugborough

Shugborough is a complete working historic estate with an elegant 17th-century mansion, 19th-century model farm with working watermill, extensive servants' quarters, and over 900 acres of parkland, including eight major monuments and extensive gardens. We managed a tour of the house and gardens as well as (some of us) a brief sprint through the servants' quarters.