Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
The Midlands & the Marches
For a thorough overview of the Potteries area's history, this museum and gallery houses an extensive ceramics display, from Toby jugs and jasperware to…
Must-see attractions in The Midlands & the Marches
The Midlands & the Marches
Founded in AD 943 and reconstructed in the 18th century, Derby Cathedral's vaulted ceiling towers above a fine collection of medieval tombs, including the…
The Midlands & the Marches
Near Oakham, the Rutland Water Nature Reserve has 31 hides throughout the reserve and a viewing section upstairs in the Anglian Water Birdwatching Centre,…
Peak District
In Victorian times, spa activities centred on Buxton's extravagant baths, built in Regency style in 1854 and fronted by the Crescent, a grand, curving…
Stratford-upon-Avon
A youthful Shakespeare allegedly poached deer in the grounds of this lavish Elizabethan pile on the River Avon, 5 miles east of Stratford-upon-Avon…
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Birmingham
Major Pre-Raphaelite works by Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and others are among the highlights of the delightful Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery's…
Royal Worcester Porcelain Works
The Midlands & the Marches
Up there with the country's most famous potteries, the Royal Worcester porcelain factory gained an edge over its rivals by picking up the contract to…
Peak District
Brews by this riverside brewery include bottled varieties (such as a fruity strawberry-blonde ale, I Love You Will You Marry Me), keg beers (eg its Vienna…
Birmingham
Just over a mile southeast of the city centre, Digbeth's creative quarter centres on the Custard Factory, a hip art-and-design enclave set in the…
The Midlands & the Marches
Founded in the 1770s by Richard Arkwright, the Cromford Mill was the first modern factory, producing cotton on automated machines powered by a series of…
The Midlands & the Marches
This regal, neoclassical mansion is the ancestral home of royal photographer Lord Lichfield. A good proportion of the wall space is devoted to his work;…
Stratford-upon-Avon
Shakespeare's alma mater, King Edward VI School (still a prestigious grammar school today), incorporates a vast black-and-white timbered building, dating…
The Midlands & the Marches
England's most popular classical composer is celebrated at the humble country cottage where Edward Elgar was born in 1857. From mid-2018 the museum will…
Birmingham
Situated 1.5 miles northwest of Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, Soho House is where industrialist Matthew Boulton lived from 1766 to 1809. Among the…
The Midlands & the Marches
Set in attractive parkland 8 miles south of Hanley, the modern production centre for Josiah Wedgwood's porcelain empire displays an extensive collection…
Peak District Lead Mining Museum
The Midlands & the Marches
An educational introduction to the mining history of Matlock is provided by this enthusiast-run museum set in an old Victorian dance hall. Kids can…
The Midlands & the Marches
The village of Wall was once the Roman settlement of Letocetum, which became a key staging post on the Roman road to Wales, and the remains of its inn and…
Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum
The Midlands & the Marches
This absorbing museum charts the life of the pioneering lexicographer, wit, poet and critic Samuel Johnson, who moved to London from his native Lichfield…
Peak District
Topping the ridge to the south of Castleton, a 350m walk from the town centre, this evocative castle has been so ravaged by the centuries that it almost…
The Midlands & the Marches
The ancestral home of the Spencer family, Althorp House – pronounced 'altrup' – is the final resting place of Diana, Princess of Wales, commemorated by a…
The Midlands & the Marches
Mills and presses, glassware, watercolours, photographs and films are among the displays at this former cider-making factory (Bulmer's original premises),…
The Midlands & the Marches
Friar St was largely chock-a-block with historic architecture until the iconoclastic 1960s when much was demolished, including the lovely medieval Lich…
The Midlands & the Marches
This museum exploring the history of Leicester from Roman times to the modern day was undergoing renovations at the time of writing, and is expected to…
Nottingham
Taking aim at the castle gates with his bow and arrow from Nottingham Castle's former moat, this 1952-unveiled bronze statue of Nottingham's famous outlaw…
The Midlands & the Marches
This impressively preserved Tudor mansion was built by Lawrence Washington in 1539. The Washington family lived here for almost 120 years before Colonel…
Peak District
Bakewell's local-history museum occupies a time-worn stone house that was built as a tax collector's premises during Henry VIII's rule and was expanded in…
The Midlands & the Marches
Highlights of this grand Victorian museum include the dinosaur galleries, the painting collection (with works by Turner and Degas), ceramics by Picasso,…
The Midlands & the Marches
In a pretty park overlooking the River Trent, the ruins of Newark Castle include an impressive Norman gate and a series of underground passages and…
The Midlands & the Marches
If you only have time to visit one Herefordshire cider-maker, make it Westons Cider Mills, whose house brew is even served in the Houses of Parliament…
Peak District
Captivating Treak Cliff has a forest of stalactites and exposed seams of colourful Blue John stone, which is still mined to supply the jewellery trade…
Birmingham
Surrounded by the footprints of vanished factories, the Millennium Point development incorporates this entertaining and ambitious attempt to make science…
The Midlands & the Marches
Located 13 miles southwest of Hereford in the Golden Valley village of Abbey Dore, Dore Abbey dates from the 12th century. The majority of the site has…
Nottingham
In the grand Georgian Shire Hall, the National Justice Museum offers a ghoulish stroll through centuries of British justice, including medieval trials by…
Birmingham
Set in lush grounds 3 miles north of the city centre, this well-preserved hall was built in extravagant Jacobean style between 1618 and 1635. The…
The Midlands & the Marches
The town's history museum is housed in a splendid Tudor building that served as King Charles II's headquarters during the Battle of Worcester. Engaging…
The Midlands & the Marches
On the road to Newark, 1 mile east of the village centre, the Southwell Workhouse is a sobering reminder of the tough life faced by paupers in the 19th…
Stratford-upon-Avon
Fun, hands-on exhibits at Stratford's Mechanical Art & Design Museum (aka MAD) make physics accessible for kids, who can build their own gravity-propelled…
Birmingham
Within the glitzy Brindley Pl development of banking offices and designer restaurants, a converted Gothic schoolhouse contains the cutting-edge Ikon…
Nottingham
Over the centuries, the sandstone underneath Nottingham has been carved into a honeycomb of caverns and passageways. Tours lead you from the top level of…
Peak District
Just over half a mile west of Castleton at the mouth of Winnats Pass, this claustrophobe's nightmare is reached by descending 106 steps for an eerie boat…
