3 Best Sights in England

For more than two centuries, jewelers have worked in the district of Hockley, northwest of the city center. Today, hundreds of manufacturing jewelers continue the tradition in the Jewellery Quarter, producing more than a third of the jewelry made in Britain. It’s a fun area to explore, with many of the jewelers working out of pretty redbrick houses.  The quarter's website has a useful interactive map.

The city’s Assay Office hallmarks 12 million items each year with the anchor symbol, denoting Birmingham origin. The ornate green and gilded Chamberlain Clock, at the intersection of Vyse Street, Warstone Lane, and Frederick Street, marks the center of the district. The quarter is two stops on the Metro from Birmingham New Street, and although it is a lot calmer than the city center, it has a hip café and restaurant scene.

Eighty acres of rolling lawns and splendid period architecture provide one of Britain's finest settings for a cathedral, the largest cathedral close in the country. Laid out in 1220, it is bordered by 21 historic buildings and contains three museums: the Mompesson House, the Salisbury Museum, and the Rifles Museum, which is devoted to the county's infantry regiments.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, Saltaire was built as a model village in the mid-19th century by textile magnate Sir Titus Salt, who, aspiring to create the ideal industrial community, decided to relocate his factories from the dark mills of Bradford to the countryside. The Italianate village (the main building resembles a palazzo) is remarkably well preserved, with its former mills and houses now turned into shops, restaurants, and galleries, as well as private homes. The largest factory in the world when it was built in 1853, today it contains an art gallery, along with crafts and furniture shops. A narrowboat provides 30-minute trips along a stretch of the Leeds & Liverpool canal.