in the Heart of Included in the price: • Three nights’ dinner, bed and breakfast at the Best Western Plus Manor Hotel, NEC Birmingham. All rooms have private facilities

• Comfortable coaching throughout

• Visits to the Wedgwood Museum (guided tour), Birmingham’s ‘Back-to-Backs’ (guided tour), (guided tour), Birmingham , Birmingham Silver Assay Office (guided tour), Birmingham Cathedral (guided tour), Bantock House Museum, the Barber Institute (guided tour) and Wightwick Manor (guided tour)

• Services of a professional tour manager

• Individual Vox audio devices

• Evening lecture by an accredited Arts Society Speaker

• Gratuities Not included (per person): • Single room supplement • Insurance • Porterage (see below)

Prices (per person, based on two people sharing a room & minimum 25 travelling):

from £565.00 Single room supplement: £75.00

Tel: 01334 657155 | Email: [email protected] www.brightwaterholidays.com | Brightwater Holidays Ltd, The Arts Society Hambleton 5020 Eden Park House, Cupar, Fife KY15 4HS 20 – 23 May 2019 Day 2 – Tuesday 21 May 201 9 continued... Itinerary This afternoon we will visit Birmingham Cathedral. Built in 1715 as the new parish church “on the hill”, St Philip’s is a rare and fine example of elegant English Baroque Day 1 – Monday 20 May 2019 architecture. It is Grade 1 listed and one of the oldest buildings in the city still used We depart by coach from our local area and head for its original purpose. Fascinating both inside and out, the cathedral is home to for Wedgwood Visitor Centre at Barlaston, Stoke some remarkable treasures (not least the inspiring stained-glass windows designed by on Trent. Housed in a stunning contemporary Edward Burne-Jones) as we will discover on our guided tour. building, the Wedgwood Museum boasts paintings We return to our hotel, where dinner is served in the evening. by famous artists such as George Stubbs and Sir Joshua Reynolds, thousands of intriguing documents Day 3 – Wednesday 22 May 2019 and manuscripts, over four hundred original pattern This morning following breakfast we visit Soho House, the elegant home of the books and, of course, outstanding displays of some of industrialist and entrepreneur from 1766 to 1809. The house the world’s finest Wedgwood ceramic objects. Josiah has been beautifully restored and reflects the fashions and tastes of the late Wedgwood I was a fascinating individual - scientist, Georgian period. There is also a chance to see some of the products of Boulton’s artist, entrepreneur, social reformer – and one of nearby factory – where buttons and buckles, clocks and vases, and silver and the most important figures of his age. The museum plate tableware were made – and where he developed the steam engine chronicles his life, the company he founded and the in partnership with . Soho House was also a favourite meeting place of people whose skills, artistry and ingenuity have for the Lunar Society, a leading Enlightenment group which included Erasmus Darwin, many generations kept Wedgwood at the forefront of James Watt and Joseph Priestly who all gathered around the Lunar Room table and taste and fashion. A guided tour is included. engaged in a lively exchange of ideas which inspired many new discoveries and Following our visit we will continue to our inventions. A guided tour is included. comfortable accommodation at the Best Western After this we will visit Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, where an estimated 40% Plus Manor Hotel, NEC Birmingham. Dinner is of British jewellery is created. The Jewellery Quarter dates back over 200 years served in the hotel. In the evening we will enjoy and is a Conservation Area with over 200 listed buildings. At the centre of the an introductory lecture on the local area by an Jewellery Quarter shopping area stands the Quarter’s Chamberlain clock, and a accredited Arts Society Speaker. short walk from this landmark takes you to the Jewellery Quarter’s historic, Key Hill and Warstone Lane Cemeteries. Day 2 – Tuesday 21 May 2019 We continue to the , which was founded in 1773 to After breakfast we will visit the Barber Institute, provide assaying (testing) and hallmarking of precious metal items (gold, silver, which was founded in 1932 by Dame Martha platinum and palladium) as required by the Hallmarking Act. On arrival the Constance Hattie Barber in memory of her husband, Curator will give a talk on the organisation, its history of hallmarking and its Sir William Henry Barber. Housed in a Grade II connections with Matthew Boulton, followed by a DVD presentation covering the listed Art Deco building designed by Robert Atkinson, processes of assaying and hallmarking, and the current operations of the Assay it was officially opened by Queen Mary in 1939. Office. We then enjoy a tour of the unique and extensive Silver Collection and the Featuring many of the greatest names in Western art, Library, which is equally remarkable and contains many fascinating volumes on a the Barber holds one of the most outstanding and wide variety of subjects. internationally significant collections assembled in Britain during the 20th Century. A one-hour guided We return to the hotel in time for dinner. tour is included. Day 4 – Thursday 23 May 2019 We then continue to the National Trust’s Back to After breakfast we check out of the hotel. Our first visit today will be to the Back Houses, offering an atmospheric glimpse into Bantock House Museum, which houses an excellent collection of papier maché the lives of the ordinary people who helped make made in Wolverhampton. Reflecting the Arts and Crafts movement, and other Birmingham an extraordinary city. Our guided popular fashions of the period, the interior features carved oak panelling and, tour will take us back in time at Birmingham’s last in the grand Staircase Hall, six Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Frederick Shields surviving court of back to back houses, built around and a cosy inglenook fireplace. Bantock House also has fine examples of English a communal courtyard. Moving from the 1840s porcelain and ceramics including Delftware tiles, Royal Worcester, Bloor Derby through to the 1970s, we will discover the lives of and Myatt, exquisite examples of locally made japanned ware, enamels and steel some of the former residents who crammed into jewellery, as well as a display of children’s toys and dolls. these small houses to live and work. With fires alight in the grates, and sounds and smells from the past, Our final visit before we continue our journey home will be to the house and we will experience an evocative and intimate insight gardens at Wightwick Manor. In 1937, local Liberal MP, Geoffrey Mander, donated into life at the Back to Backs. After our tour there the house to the National Trust after being left it by his father. The gardens are will be an opportunity for a walk down memory lane designed by T H Mawson who was a leading landscape artist in his day. From the in the 1930s sweet shop. formal garden through the orchard to the kitchen garden and pools, there is plenty to see. A guided tour is included and lunch is available here (not included). Following our visit we will return to our original pick-up points.