Heart of Stones

Today, all along Vyse Street, Caroline Street and the other historic roads of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, there’s a surprising amount of peace considering the rest of the swirling modern city that gets on with its business nearby. Dotting these streets are handsome brick workshops and stores selling precious stones, rings and all manner of decorative objects both to the public and the wholesale trade, but the grit and grime of the area’s industrial past has gone, and it is the quietness that is the real surprise.

Since the worldwide success of the BBC TV period drama series , interest in the industrial heritage of England’s second city has exploded. After achieving city status in 1889 and establishing an international reputation for manufacturing, Birmingham became known as “the City of a Thousand Trades”, but jewellers