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Forward thinkingWith its motto of ‘Forward’, Britain’s second city has never been one to dwell on its past as the transformation in recent years of the city centre will testify. Yet that past, and its legacy, makes Birmingham a rewarding place to visit for lovers of culture and history, from Jacobean mansions to jewellery.How and when it all began, no one is entirely sure. The name ‘Birmingham’ is Anglo-Saxon in origin, though no trace of a settlement from that period has been found so far. The fi rst written record is in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was a barely a scratch on the landscape. Yet, by the 19th century it had become the rapidly expanding ‘City of a Thousand Trades’, an industrial powerhouse known for its innovative products, from nibs to cutlery. The grand houses across the region, such as Weston Park, Hagley Hall and Packington Hall, are the legacy of the wealth of this area from the 17th century.With Victorian prosperity came grand new public buildings, few grander than Birmingham Council House, with its Corinthian columns, central dome and opulent decoration, fi nished in 1874. For most visitors, however, the real draw of the building is the institution that occupies two extensions to the original structure, completed in 1885 and 1919 and connected by Birmingham’s very own version of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Its 40-plus galleries are fi lled with treasures, including the largest collection of pre-Raphaelite art in the world. Among its newest attractions is the Staffordshire Hoard exhibition, devoted to a selection of the 3,500 exquisitely crafted gold and silver Anglo-Saxon artefacts found in a fi eld near Lichfi eld in 2009.On a smaller scale, but no less noteworthy, is the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, which is housed in a superb purpose-built Art Deco building on the The 2017 AGM will be held in Birmingham, a city where innovation and industry has spawned a host of cultural attractions. Claire Gervat discovers some of the gems; related tours organised by West Midlands Area are outlined over the following pages30 NADFAS REVIEW / AUTUMN 2016 www.nadfas.org.uk