39 Fun Facts About Birmingham, England

Birmingham's well-worn boast is that it has more miles of canal than which famous canal city?

Venice has about 26 miles of canal to Birmingham's 35, but the boast flatters: Birmingham is a far bigger city, so its canals are spread much more thinly.

Alfred Bird, a Birmingham chemist, invented his custard powder because which ingredient disagreed with his wife?

Eggs thicken a traditional custard, so Bird built his powder on cornflour instead; he went on to devise a baking powder too, for making bread without yeast.

George Cadbury, a Quaker, kept which business out of Bournville, his model village beside the chocolate works?

Pubs have never been built in Bournville, a legacy of George Cadbury's temperance beliefs, although Rowheath Pavilion, built for the works' sports fields, now has a bar of its own.

The 'ring' in Birmingham's Bull Ring was an iron hoop to which bulls were tied for what, before slaughter?

Baiting took place on the green of the medieval Corn Cheaping market, which gave the Bull Ring its name; the 1964 Bull Ring Centre that later replaced it was the UK's first indoor city-centre shopping centre.

Duran Duran, formed in Birmingham in 1978, took their name from a villain in which 1968 science-fiction film?

Barbarella's villain Dr. Durand Durand, played by Milo O'Shea, gave the band its name, and O'Shea returned the compliment by playing the part again in their concert film Arena.

Legend says the real Peaky Blinders of 1890s Birmingham stitched what into the peaks of their flat caps?

Razor blades in the cap are probably a myth, says historian Carl Chinn: the blades were then a costly novelty, and 'peaky' was simply slang for the gang's peaked flat caps.

Which American author wrote 'Rip Van Winkle' overnight while staying with his sister in Birmingham, England?

Washington Irving was bankrupt and stuck for ideas when an evening of nostalgic talk with his brother-in-law, a Birmingham merchant, set the story off, and he wrote until morning.

Birmingham's Assay Office, won by Matthew Boulton's lobbying in 1773, marks silver with which hallmark symbol?

An anchor for landlocked Birmingham and a crown for Sheffield are said to come from the Crown and Anchor tavern in London, where the two towns' campaigners met, with chance deciding who took which.

Aston Villa's European Cup triumph of 1982, a 1-0 win in Rotterdam, came against which German club?

Bayern Munich were beaten by a Peter Withe goal in the 67th minute, with Villa's reserve keeper Nigel Spink, making only his second first-team appearance, keeping them out after Jimmy Rimmer was hurt.

Aston Villa's founders in 1874 were cricketers from what kind of institution at Villa Cross, Handsworth?

A Wesleyan chapel's cricketers started the club as a winter pastime, taking the name of a nearby Georgian villa; within 14 years a Villa director, William McGregor, had founded the Football League.

Obafemi Martins' 89th-minute goal won Birmingham City the 2011 League Cup final at Wembley against which club?

Arsenal's keeper Wojciech Szczęsny and defender Laurent Koscielny got in a tangle under a long ball, leaving Martins to score into an empty net and earn Birmingham City a place in the Europa League.

Under what name was Birmingham City founded in 1875, before becoming plain 'Birmingham' in 1905?

Small Heath Alliance was started by a cricket team that wanted something to do in the winter months; the club dropped the 'Alliance' in 1888 and the 'Small Heath' in 1905.

Which Australian bowler trod on a stray ball before the 2005 Edgbaston Test, which England won by two runs?

Glenn McGrath tore ankle ligaments in the warm-up and missed the match; the man who took his place, Michael Kasprowicz, was the last batsman out, with Australia three runs from victory.

Birmingham took the 2022 Commonwealth Games after which South African city was stripped of them in 2017?

Durban lost the Games over financial problems, and Birmingham saw off Liverpool in a relaunched bid; the Games went on to add an estimated £1.2 billion to the UK economy.

Birmingham 2022's mascot, a multicoloured bull named after the Alexander Stadium's district, was called what?

Perry takes his name from Perry Barr, home of the Alexander Stadium, and is a bull because of the Bull Ring market; his hexagon-patterned hide was designed by a ten-year-old competition winner.

Which nickname did the Birmingham Evening Mail coin in 1965 for the unbuilt Gravelly Hill Interchange?

Spaghetti Junction began as a headline: reporter Roy Smith wrote that the plans looked like 'a cross between a plate of spaghetti and an unsuccessful attempt at a Staffordshire knot', and a sub-editor did the rest.

Birmingham's Lunar Society of Boulton, Watt and Erasmus Darwin met when, so that members could get home safely?

At the full moon the extra light made the journey home easier and safer before street lighting, and the members, who cheerfully called themselves 'lunaticks', met at Boulton's home among other venues.

Which Lunar Society chemist, who isolated oxygen, fled Birmingham after a 1791 mob burned his home and laboratory?

Joseph Priestley, who also invented soda water, was a target twice over, as a religious Dissenter and as a supporter of the French Revolution; after the riots he never lived in Birmingham again, and he died in America.

Birmingham's gilded 'Golden Boys' statue shows Boulton, Watt and which pioneer of gas lighting?

William Murdoch, the Boulton & Watt engine erector who built a model steam carriage in 1784, joins his employers poring over an engine plan, which earned the 1956 statue its other nickname, 'The Carpet Salesmen'.

In Victorian times Birmingham was the world's chief maker of which writing item, successor to the quill?

Steel pen nibs, stamped out cheaply by a workforce of some 8,000, most of them women, put writing within reach of people who had never been able to afford a pen.

BSA, founded by Birmingham gunsmiths in 1861, was the world's top maker of what after buying Triumph?

Motorcycles made BSA the biggest name in its trade in the 1950s, yet by 1973 its shares had collapsed and what was left was sold off in a government-backed rescue.

Alexander Parkes of Birmingham showed cellulose-based 'Parkesine' at London's 1862 exhibition: the first what?

Plastic's birth is usually dated to Parkesine, yet Parkes made nothing from it: the stuff was dear to produce and prone to cracking, and his company closed in 1868.

Which typeface is named after an 18th-century Birmingham printer, an atheist whose corpse was later put on show?

Baskerville wanted burial in a conical mill on his own land rather than consecrated ground, but a canal cut through it in 1821 and the landowner displayed the body until friends moved it to a church crypt.

Over half of all Spitfires came from a 'shadow factory' at which Birmingham site, later a Jaguar plant?

Castle Bromwich had not finished a single Spitfire by May 1940, when the minister Lord Beaverbrook took the plant out of the hands of Lord Nuffield's car men; it went on to build well over 10,000.

Which Alec Issigonis-designed car, launched in 1959, was built at Birmingham's Longbridge plant for four decades?

Mini design began with a fuel crisis: after Suez in 1956 petrol was rationed and big cars stopped selling, so the British Motor Corporation ordered a tiny one, and 5.38 million were built by 2000.

Which Black Sabbath singer from Aston did six weeks in Winson Green Prison at 17 for robbing a clothes shop?

Ozzy Osbourne's father refused to pay the fine to teach him a lesson; the future 'Prince of Darkness' had already worked as a trainee plumber, car-horn tuner and slaughterhouse worker before Black Sabbath.

Which store's 2003 Bullring building, designed by Future Systems, is clad in 15,000 anodised aluminium discs?

Selfridges wanted its third store outside London to be an instantly recognisable signpost for the brand, and the curved blue shell studded with discs duly became a landmark of 'blobitecture'.

Which 1965 tower beside Birmingham's Bullring was listed, then turned into 232 flats by Urban Splash?

The Rotunda, 81 metres tall, was listed in 2000 and reopened as flats in 2008; in 1974 a pub at its foot was one of the targets of the Birmingham pub bombings.

Birmingham Town Hall, opened in 1834, was modelled on the Roman Forum temple of which twin gods?

Castor and Pollux's temple gave its proportions to Hansom's design, and Hansom, of Hansom cab fame, went bankrupt building it; Mendelssohn's 'Elijah' had its premiere in the hall in 1846.

Dhruva Mistry's fountain 'The River' in Birmingham's Victoria Square is known to locals by what nickname?

The Floozie in the Jacuzzi spent years without her jacuzzi: a leak shut the fountain off in 2013, the pool was filled with soil and bedding plants, and the water came back only in 2022.

'Big Brum' is the clock tower of which Victoria Square building, finished in 1879 to Yeoville Thomason's design?

The Council House was nearly Gothic: councillors split between a Gothic design and Thomason's classical one before choosing his, and its balcony is now where winning sports teams greet the crowds.

Which curry, cooked and served in a thin metal wok, was developed in Birmingham in the 1970s?

Balti probably takes its name from the Urdu and Hindi word for a pail, after the metal bowl it is cooked and served in; a bid to give 'Birmingham Balti' protected EU status failed in 2016.

Which sauce came to Birmingham when a Nottingham grocer sold its recipe to settle a debt with his vinegar supplier?

HP Sauce stands for Houses of Parliament: its inventor, Frederick Garton, chose the name on the story that it was being served there. The Birmingham factory closed in 2007 and production moved to the Netherlands.

Which tea brand was launched in Birmingham in 1903 by the grocer John Sumner Jr.?

Typhoo comes from the Mandarin for 'doctor', and it was sold as one: Sumner marketed his packets of fine-leaf 'tips' as a cure for indigestion and nervous disorders.

Which Cadbury bar, developed by George Cadbury Jr. in 1905, was later sold with the slogan 'a glass and a half'?

Dairy Milk was built to have more milk in it than any chocolate bar before it, which the 1928 slogan boasted about; on the way to the shops it was also called Highland Milk, Jersey and Dairy Maid.

Birmingham's UB40 topped charts with 'Red Red Wine', written by which American singer?

Neil Diamond recorded it in 1967, but the band, named after the form for claiming unemployment benefit, knew only a reggae cover and took the 'N Diamond' on the credits for a Jamaican artist.

Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan formed which Birmingham band in 1970, later famed for a spaceship stage set?

ELO, the Electric Light Orchestra, was Roy Wood's idea: a rock band with cellos and violins that would 'pick up where the Beatles left off'. Wood himself walked out during the second album to form Wizzard.

Which Birmingham band, named after a brand of amphetamine, topped the UK chart in 1982 with 'Come On Eileen'?

Dexys Midnight Runners took their name from Dexedrine, the pill Northern Soul fans used to dance all night, and Kevin Rowland made recruits give up their jobs to rehearse all day.

Which author, who lived beside Sarehole Mill in Birmingham as a boy, later called the spot 'a kind of lost paradise'?

J. R. R. Tolkien lived at Sarehole in the 1890s and drew on it for the Shire, putting its corn mill into The Lord of the Rings as the mill at Hobbiton.