Well, It's No Oxford
One does not simply walk into Mordor - so Katya and I took the train.
After hearing so many… less than complimentary things about Birmingham, we figured we should probably judge for ourselves.
We were met at the station by a very Christmasy-Tom, complete with Santa hat and Christmas jumper. We walked to our airbnb, which was apparently in the sketchy part of Birmingham, but who can tell. We dropped off our stuff and headed back into the core. I was inspired to start my photo project, Scenic Birmingham, capturing the city in all its concrete and trash-covered beauty. It looks really nice- so long as it’s out of focus. Back in the city centre, we had dinner and drinks at The Stable, which had amazing pizza and cider. As we neared December 1st, and Katya’s ban on all things Christmas was begrudgingly lifted, Tom surprised us with our first Christmas presents. I got a lovely red Santa hat and Katya got a black one with the words “On the Naughty List” and a great dinosaur Christmas jumper. Eventually, Tom had to leave to catch his train home and we were joined by some very friendly guys from London who were obviously having a good night.
The next morning our first stop was meant to be the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, however we got severely sidetracked when we walked past, of all things, a Tim Hortons. I looked it up, there are 7 Tim Hortons in all of England, 4 of them are in Manchester. My university back home has 4 Tim Hortons just on its campus. Katya and I were unspeakably excited, we explained to Tom that the British equivalent would be being in a foreign country for a long time and then suddenly seeing a Wetherspoons. We had breakfast there, and I savoured my first French Vanilla in 7 months. We also came away with a box of Timbits- because of course we did.
We maneuvered our way through the concrete and construction to the museum, with the intention of seeing some very shiny Anglo-Saxon art. We puttered past all the other stuff, the pre-Raphaelite paintings where everyone is always sleeping, the modern art that you need to read a 3 paragraph long description to figure out what it’s supposed to mean, the statues of grumpy men, and went straight for the Staffordshire Hoard Exhibit. The Hoard was discovered in 2009 and contains over 3500 pieces, mostly gold, silver, and garnet cloisonné. It was a thing of majesty. Most of the bits are small or broken, but the craftsmanship of ever piece is unmistakable. I may or may not have been planning an elaborate Oceans 11 heist movie in my head. The more recent addition to the exhibit is the helmet that was reconstructed based on fragments found in the hoard. It’s Germanic and Roman inspirations are obvious, and the intricate designs on it, especially the cheek plates, are beautiful. I’m very quickly running out of suitable adjectives, but another gorgeous piece was the sword and the recreation of the sword that was also a part of this find. I periodically had to wipe my drool off the display cases.
After we’d finished adding everything we’d just seen to our mental Christmas wish lists, we went back to the centre of town to meet up with Tom’s friends. We joined up with Rich, Em, and Kirsty, and, would run into Oscar a few times, as we started our rounds of the Birmingham German Christmas market. We did due diligence to the Germanic traditions, had bratwurst, glühwein, and Berliners, and window shopped at all the stalls selling nutcrackers, candles, and wooden Christmas ornaments. The place was packed, movement was very limited, and we kept loosing Em and Kirsty in the crowd, so we got them reindeer antlers and elf ears to make them a bit taller.
We took a bit of a break from the market to go skating. I hadn’t been skating since Katya and I went to Lake Louise last Christmas, but it came back to me quickly enough, at least enough to go around in a circle and stay upright. They try to pack as many people on the rink as possible so there’s not exactly room to try any fancy spins. The main challenge was the kamikaze kids, with their push-penguins to help them skate, who would throw themselves in front of you. Em wasn’t a very strong skater either, so she had a penguin of her own. Tom was skating around stealing our Santa hats, which earned him the Naughty List hat for a while.
We found another market outside of the cathedral where we ate and had more mulled drinks while listening to the Christmas music playing over the speakers. We wandered down to the canals, which I have to say, were actually quite pretty. All the Christmas lights reflected in the river and created a beautiful picture, if only the couple making out would get out of my photos.
The next morning, Katya and I mysteriously found ourselves back at the Timmies. Strange.
Tom picked us up from our airbnb and we went to his house. Tom and I fought in the backyard for a while before we went inside, where - DESCRIPTION OF HOUSE REDACTED. Katya’s insanely allergic to cats so Tom had cleaned and quarantined his room. We watched an episode of Vikings, with our classic running commentary, ripping the whole thing apart, which is half the fun.
We were also able to make it out to Kenilworth Castle. Now this was really exciting for me. We had talked about Kenilworth extensively in my Renaissance Literature class last year, specifically about the revels that took place here in 1575. Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, had long been a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, and she had actually given him the castle. Under Mary Tudor, many members of Dudley’s family had been executed for supporting the Lady Jean Grey as Queen, whose ‘reign’ lasted for 9 days. However, once Elizabeth was crowned, he was restored and elevated to the position of her Master of Horse. They were inseparable, and even though he was married, Dudley was rarely away from the queen’s side.
Dudley’s wife eventually died, but Elizabeth refused to marry him, so he set up the most elaborate and ‘subtle’ marriage proposal ever. The Kenilworth Revels was a 19-day Medieval LARP fest, with people dressing up as characters from Greek myths, Arthurian legends, and local Folk stories, all to preform elaborate masques and plays celebrating the Queen’s rule and hint that she should really marry Dudley. There was hunting, bear-baiting, acrobats, musicians, and every other form of entertainment imaginable at the time. He had completely redone the gardens and the castle, restoring the 100ft keep to be the Queen’s chambers, and fitting with large glass windows, illuminated by candles. This sight was so majestic to behold that Robert Langham, who recorded almost everything we know about the Revels wrote, “every room so spacious, so well belighted, and so high roofed within, so seemly to sight by due proportion without: by day time, on every side so glittering by glass; by nights by continual brightness of candle, fire, and torchlight, transparent through the lightsome windows, as it were the Egyptian Pharos relucent unto all the Alexandrian coast . . . or else radiant as though Phoebus for his ease would rest him in the Castle, and not every night so travel down into the Antipodes.” (Robert Langham, A Letter, Chapter 48)
The final performance, which would have been Dudley’s final proposal, never took place. It was rained out and Elizabeth refused to stay or allow it to be performed. Dudley took the hint and later married another woman, but the two remained close until the end of his life. Elizabeth wrote, “I love him and will love and regard him all my life long” (Letter, 1565) There have been so many dramas and books written about their relationship, and whatever the truth may be, I always rather pity Elizabeth. She probably would have married him, had she been anyone but a queen. He was a subject and her first duty had to be to the country. So much political language and symbolism surrounded her, everything she did was scrutinized and twisted to be used against her, it must have been a very lonely life.
It’s hard to look at a complete ruin and imagine it teaming with light, and people, and sound. Cold stone walls would have been covered in brilliantly coloured tapestries and warmed by roaring fires. The wide empty fields would have been teaming with servants and livestock all bustling to prepare for the Queen’s Progression. It’s just as hard to look at an Imperial portrait of Elizabeth, dressed in stately pomp and surrounded by suffocating symbolism, and try to interpret who she might have really been and what she really would have thought. The sun was setting as we left, and the warm electric lights in the gift shop windows were a hint of what the grounds would have been 500 years ago.
Tom dropped us off at the train station and we made our long trek back to civilization, complete with replacement bus service. We survived our weekend in Birmingham without being stabbed, mugged, or even set on fire.