24 hours in… BIRMINGHAM
Unusually for a major city, Birmingham has no river running through it. In medieval times, the centres of power in the English Midlands lay elsewhere, nestled in the valleys of the Severn, Trent and Avon. A market was established in Corn Cheaping on the site of the modern-day city’s Bull Ring shopping centre back in 1154 under Royal Charter, but Birmingham otherwise remained a modest settlement until the late 16th and 17th centuries. It was then that industry boomed, powered by iron
