SIGHTS (The Pen Museum / Ramgarhia Sikh Temple): Return to the Chamberlain Clock, and walk down Frederick St. At the end of the street is the Birmingham Pen museum, set in the atmosphere of a former Victorian pen factory. Unknown to most people, about 75 pct. of everything written around the world in the 19th century was written with a Birmingham pen, and the museum contains over 5,000 objects related to the Birmingham Steel pen trades and the history of writing.
Now turn left on Graham St, passing on your right hand side the Ramgarhia Sikh Temple, the place of worship for the local Punjabi Ramgarhia sikhs.
PINT (The Queens Arms / Assay Office): Continue down Graham St and its continuation Newhall St. and on the corner of Charlotte St you will find another of our favourite Brummie pubs, The Queens Arms. This is another Grade II-listed building from the 19th century, particular noteworthy for its peculiar selection of ales (which at one point included the Fridge Magnet Pale Ale from Camerons), as well as for its small backyard seating area, which is equipped with old cinema style seats along one wall. One wall in the backyard is also amply decorated with beer labels from around the world, which can make for an interesting study or topic of conversation all by itself.
Just across the street from The Queens Arms is the old Birmingham Assay Office, also a Grade II-listed building, which was built in 1877. At the beginning of the 21st century this was the largest Assay Office in Europe, hallmarking 13 million articles in 2003 alone. Construction of a new Assay Office on Icknield Street was begun in May 2014, and the office will be relocated from Newhall St. to the new premises during 2015.
SIGHTS (Newhall Street): You can now return to the city centre by walking up Newhall St. You won’t have to cross the massive A40 by footbridge once more, as part of the road is in a tunnel at this point. As you walk up the street, you will see a large number of listed buildings, most of them late Victorian and Edwardian, in between some modern ones. According to one list, numbers 17 & 19, 27 & 29, 43-51, 44,46 & 48, 50 & 52, 54, 56, 58 & 60, 61, 144, 199, 204 & 206 as well as the Assay Office and the Queens Arms are listed buildings.
A LAST PINT OR TWO (The Wellington): Continue until you reach the end of Newhall St and continue on Bennetts Hill on the other side of Colmore Row. Here you’ll find The Wellington, a popular and authentic no-nonsense real ale pub, which has won the Birmingham CAMRA’s Pub of the Year award several years in a row. The pub has 16 handpulls with about 10 of them constantly changing guest beers. The beers available when you visit are shown on a screen by the bar, and you just have to give the number of the pump rather than the name of the ale when you place your order. The staff of Sights & Pints enjoyed the marvelously named Piffle Snonker from Froth Blowers when we visited in May 2015. The Wellington also hosts occasional Cheese BYOC events – Bring Your Own Cheese, that is(!).
If you liked the Old Joint Stock Pub, mentioned earlier, you can visit it once again by going out the back entrance of The Wellington and up some stairs on the other side of the small alleyway. This will take you to the outdoor seating area of the Old Joint Stock. That’s back-to-back pub crawling for you.
You are now pretty much as close to the center of Birmingham as you can get. A five minute walk (depending on how many pints you have had already and how many you choose to have at The Wellington) will take you to the Moor St, Snow Hill and New Street stations as well as to the Centenary Square. A few minutes further on from Centenary Square will get you to the popular Broad Street and BrindleyPlace entertainment quarter.
We hope you have enjoyed the walk and the guide. Please let us know if you have any comments, ideas, suggestions etc. and we will take them into consideration when we next update the guide.