Birmingham Back to Backs

Birmingham Back to Backs is the city's last surviving court of back-to-back houses, Court 15 beside the Hippodrome, where working families lived around a shared yard from the 1840s to the 1970s. Visited by pre-booked guided tour only, the four restored houses move through time with fires lit in the grates, from a Victorian tailor's workshop to a 1970s sweet shop, and the George Saunders collection is the only body of work by a Caribbean tailor in the UK. Reviewers single out the guides, whose stories of former residents make the ninety-minute tour feel personal rather than a lecture. Tips from visitors: book ahead, as entry is by pre-booked tour only; the full tour has eight sets of steep, narrow stairs, so choose the ground-floor version if needed; there is no Trust parking, so come by train to New Street or park at the Arcadian Centre; the second-hand bookshop and exhibition space are free to enter.