Four houses, four decades
From an 1840s watchmaker to a 1970s tailor, each house is furnished to the era of a real family who lived in it.
On a corner where theatre crowds from the Hippodrome spill into the Chinese Quarter at night stands a cluster of red-brick houses almost nobody notices, and it is the last of a housing type that once held tens of thousands of Birmingham families. Back to back means exactly that: each house shares its rear wall with another facing the opposite street, so light and air come from one side only, and a whole family, often with its workshop, lived in two or three rooms stacked on top of each other. More than five hundred families passed through this one small court in about a century and a half, before the 1875 Public Health Act stopped any more being built and twentieth-century slum clearance flattened every other court in the city. You can only visit on a guided tour of about ninety minutes, in groups kept tiny because the rooms are tiny. It starts in the 1840s with the Levys, Jewish watchmakers whose ancestors came from eastern Europe, moves to the 1870s home of the Oldfields, who made glass eyes for dolls and stuffed animals, steps into the 1930s house of the Mitchell family of locksmiths between the wars, and ends in the 1970s inside the tailoring shop of George Saunders, who arrived from St Kitts and stitched here until 2001. Between the houses is a paved yard with the shared wash-houses and the outdoor privies that served everyone, and on the corner a shop front kept as a 1930s sweet shop; reception, where tours gather, is in one of the Hurst Street shop fronts. What stays with you is not the furniture but the guide: these are stories about real named families and their trades, not the working class as an abstraction. Practicalities: booking is essential and tickets go online four weeks ahead. Closed Monday; Tuesday and Wednesday are afternoons only, the other days run from 10:00 (Sunday 10:30) to a last tour at 15:00. Adults pay £13, children (5-17) £6.50, a family of two adults and up to three children £32.50, and National Trust members and under-fives go free. The staircases are narrow, spiral and very steep across three floors, so there is no room for pushchairs and it does not suit anyone unsteady on their feet; a one-hour ground-floor tour exists and is slightly cheaper at £12. Children over about eight are usually gripped; toddlers will fidget in rooms with no space to fidget in. It sits right in the centre, under ten minutes on foot from New Street station and the Bullring, with parking at the Arcadian complex next door. Entirely under a roof, it is one of Birmingham's best rainy-day choices, and in the summer holidays weekend slots vanish days ahead, so book early. Worth it? If you enjoy social history and want to see the city that built industrial England rather than its shopping centres, this is the best ninety minutes you will spend in Birmingham. If you want photogenic space and room for the children to roam, the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, half an hour's drive away, is the better fit.
From an 1840s watchmaker to a 1970s tailor, each house is furnished to the era of a real family who lived in it.
A paved court with the shared wash-houses and outdoor privies, plus a corner shop front kept as a 1930s sweet shop.
Very small groups and a guide who knows the residents by name and trade make this better than any conventional museum.
55-63 Hurst Street, Birmingham B5 4TE
Under about seven, no: it is ninety minutes of standing and listening in cramped rooms with spiral stairs, and pushchairs cannot come in. From eight or so upwards it becomes one of the most engaging things in Birmingham for children, especially the outdoor privies and the tailor's story.
Completely different things. Black Country is an open-air museum with whole streets, trams and a mine that fills a family day and needs a car, half an hour from the centre. Back to Backs is ninety intimate minutes in the city centre about real houses and the people in them. With a full day and a car, go to Dudley; with a wet afternoon in the centre, come here.