18 Best Sights in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Heart of England, England

Part of the University of Birmingham, this museum has a small but astounding collection of European paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture, including works by Botticelli, van Dyck, Gainsborough, Turner, Manet, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, and Magritte. The museum also has a lively program of temporary exhibitions and a weekly lunchtime concert at 1 pm on Friday, as well as occasional evening concerts. The museum is three miles from the city center; to get here, take a train from New Street Station to University Station, which is a 10-minute walk from the gallery, or jump on a No. 61 or 63 bus, operated by National Express West Midlands.

Vast and impressive, this museum holds a magnificent collection of Victorian art and is known internationally for its works by the Pre-Raphaelites. All the big names are here—among them Rubens, Renoir, Constable, and Francis Bacon—reflecting the enormous wealth of 19th-century Birmingham and the aesthetic taste of its industrialists. Galleries of metalwork, silver, and ceramics reveal some of the city’s history, and works from the Renaissance, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the present day are also well represented. One gallery displays part of the incredible Staffordshire Hoard, the greatest collection of Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered. The 3,500-strong haul was unearthed in a field 16 miles north of Birmingham; among the hundreds of items on permanent display here include helmets, gold, jewelry, and metalwork. The Edwardian Tearooms are good for lunch, and there is a great play area for kids just outside.

On a hilltop west of the town center, this church designed by George Steuart, the architect of Attingham Park, is one of England’s most distinctive ecclesiastical buildings. Completed in 1792, the round Georgian church is surmounted by a tower that is in turn square, octagonal, and circular, as well as topped by a dome. When built, it provoked riots among townsfolk averse to its radical style. The interior has a fine Venetian east window and a brass Arts and Crafts pulpit.

Six miles south of Ross-on-Wye, outside the village of Symonds Yat (a local dialect word for "gate"), the 473-foot-high Yat Rock commands superb views of the River Wye as it winds through a narrow gorge in a great five-mile loop. It's best approached from the south on B4432, and from there, it's a short walk. A small, hand-pulled ferry takes passengers across the river from the Saracens Head pub (£1.20). About a mile northeast of Symonds Yat is King Arthur’s Cave, although any link to the legendary monarch is, well, just a legend. Several important Paleolithic finds have been made in the cave, including flint tools and the bones of a woolly mammoth and a saber-toothed cat. Today, it is home to a colony of bats. To find the cave, take the exit marked Symonds Yat West from the A40. Park at the rest area just before Downard Park campsite, and follow the path a short way into the woods.

Between the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Clopton Bridge lie these well-tended expanses of lawns and flower beds. The swans gliding gracefully along the river are permanent residents, coexisting with the pleasure craft on the river and the nearby canal. The centerpiece of the gardens is the Gower Memorial statue, designed in 1888 by Lord Gower and adorned with bronze figures of Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Falstaff, and Prince Hal—symbols of philosophy, tragedy, comedy, and history, respectively.

The early-18th-century Cathedral Church of St. Philip, a few blocks from Victoria Square, contains some lovely plasterwork in its elegant, gilded Georgian interior. The stained-glass windows behind the altar, designed by the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98) and executed by the firm of William Morris & Company, glow with sensuous hues. There are regular free guided tours (most Monday at 12:30 pm and Wednesday at 11:30 am) where you can find out about how this church became a cathedral.

Chester’s unique Rows, which originated in the 12th and 13th centuries, are essentially double rows of stores, one at street level and the other on the second floor with galleries overlooking the street. The Rows line the junction of the four streets in the old town. They have medieval crypts below them, and some reveal Roman foundations.

Accessible from several points, the city walls provide splendid views of Chester and its surroundings. The whole circuit is two miles, but if your time is short, climb the steps at Newgate and walk along toward Eastgate to see the great ornamental Eastgate Clock, erected to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Lots of small shops near this part of the walls sell old books, old postcards, antiques, and jewelry. Where the Bridge of Sighs (named after the enclosed bridge in Venice that it closely resembles) crosses the canal, descend to street level and walk up Northgate Street into Market Square.

Crowded with gilded, carved, and painted tombs, the Beauchamp Chantry within this church is considered one of the finest medieval chapels in England. Despite the wealth of late-medieval and Tudor chivalry, the chapel was built in the 15th century in honor of the somewhat-less-than-chivalrous Richard de Beauchamp, who consigned Joan of Arc to burn at the stake. Alongside his impressive effigy in gilded bronze lie the fine tombs of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, adviser and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, and Dudley’s brother, Ambrose. The church’s chancel, distinguished by its flying ribs, houses the alabaster table tomb of Thomas Beauchamp, one of the first Knights of the Order of the Garter, and his wife. In the Norman crypt, look for the rare ducking stool (a chair in which people were tied for public punishment).

A solidly built, early-Norman, Benedictine abbey restored in the mid-19th century, the priory dominates the steep streets downtown. The fine glass spans from the 15th century—including a magnificent east window and the vibrantly blue Magnificat window in the north transept—to the beautifully evocative Millennium Windows, installed in 1999. There’s also a splendid set of misericords (the elaborately carved undersides of choir seats).

Start a visit to this museum with a look at the Roman Stones Gallery, which displays Roman-era tombstones previously used to repair city walls (keep an eye out for the wounded barbarian). Afterwards you can skip a few centuries to explore the period house for a tour from 1680 to the 1920s.

This historic chapel is the noble centerpiece of Stratford's Guild buildings, including the Guildhall, the Grammar School, and the almshouses—all well known to Shakespeare. It also houses some of the finest surviving medieval wall paintings in Europe. The ancient structure was rebuilt in the late Perpendicular style in the 5th century. The paintings were covered with limewash during the Reformation on orders given to Shakespeare’s father, who was mayor at the time. Some of the most impressive paintings, rediscovered hundreds of years later, have now been restored and can be viewed, including an ornate painting known as The Doom above the chancel arch. Restoration on other paintings continues.

Converted from a Victorian Gothic–style school, this gallery is among the city’s top venues for contemporary art from Britain and abroad and rightly so. The bright, white interior is divided into two main galleries, which host rolling exhibitions. There’s also a third space called The Tower, which hosts more site-specific shows. The bookshop is great, and there’s a very nice café on the ground floor of the building. Ikon exemplifies how Birmingham is embracing its past while moving very much into the future.

The cluster of restored half-timber buildings that link Fish Street with Market Square is known as Bear Steps. This mansion, built in 1575 with elaborate Jacobean timbering and richly decorated with quatrefoils, is the most notable. It’s not open to the public, but it's worth a look.

In the old grammar school, this museum traces the history of the building, town, railroad, and canal, mostly through local postcards. It also has displays on two literary celebrities linked to the area, John Masefield and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Now unbecomingly surrounded by busy roads, the abbey was founded in 1083 and later became a powerful Benedictine monastery. The abbey church has survived many ups and downs and retains a 14th-century west window above a Norman doorway. A more recent addition is a memorial to World War I poet Wilfred Owen. To reach the abbey from the center, cross the river by the English Bridge.

Kids as well as adults appreciate the well-thought-out St. John’s House Museum, with its period costumes and scenes of domestic life, as well as a Victorian schoolroom and kitchen. Beautiful gardens where you can picnic surround the Jacobean building near the castle.

If you head south of Shrewsbury on B4380 for around five miles, you can see, rising on the left, the Wrekin, a strange, wooded, conical, extinct volcano that is 1,335 feet high and which may have been the inspiration behind Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings series of books; J. R. R. Tolkien lived nearby. The walk to the summit, which has panoramic views, is about five miles. A few miles farther on, you enter the wooded gorge of the River Severn.