Hotels in the Jewellery Quarter Birmingham: The Quiet Option, and Cost
Hotels in the Jewellery Quarter Birmingham trade proximity for quiet, and the exchange is smaller than it sounds.
The area sits roughly twenty minutes north-west of New Street on foot, or a few minutes on the tram, and it is the one central district whose streets empty in the evening.
What fills them instead is a strong run of restaurants in converted workshops, most of them local, not chain-led. The result is an evening that feels like a neighbourhood in place of an extension of a shopping centre, which is the main argument for staying this far out, not in the middle of the city.
St Paul's Square and the workshops
St Paul's Square is the last Georgian square in the city and the natural centre of the district.
The streets around it are lined with three-storey brick workshops carrying unusually large upper windows, built so that precious metal could be worked by daylight rather than to impress anyone passing below.
That detail explains the whole area's appearance. Nothing here was designed to be looked at, which is why it survived: the quarter was never comprehensively redeveloped, and the buildings still hold the trade they were put up for. It reads as a working district in place of a restored one, because that is exactly what it still is.
What to see in the Jewellery Quarter
The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is the reason most visitors make the walk.
A workshop closed in 1981 and was left exactly as its owners abandoned it, down to the benches, the tools and the half-finished work still lying exactly where somebody set it down for the last time.
It is unlike anything else in the city because almost nothing in it was arranged for display. Most museums assemble a room from pieces; this one simply stopped being used and was then kept as it stood, and demonstrations still run visitors through the trade the whole quarter grew around.
Getting to the Jewellery Quarter
The district has both its own railway station and its own tram stop, which is unusual for an area this close in.
The Midland Metro runs from Grand Central at New Street through the quarter and out towards The Hawthorns, so leaving without a car is genuinely easy in either direction.
On foot it is about twenty minutes from the platforms at New Street, uphill in the last stretch.
The climb in that last stretch is worth factoring in with heavy luggage. Taking the tram up from Grand Central and walking back down into the centre in the evening gives the easier direction both ways, and the quiet streets around St Paul's Square make the return after dinner a calm one.
Driving brings the usual check: the quarter sits inside the A4540 Middleway and therefore inside the Clean Air Zone, which runs around the clock and charges a non-compliant car ten pounds for the day.
The comparison against the busier central districts is on hotels in Birmingham city centre, and walking routes across the centre sets out the approach from the station with the junctions named.
Eating out here, and in the districts further south, is covered on restaurants in Birmingham and on restaurants in Moseley.
Questions about hotels in the Jewellery Quarter Birmingham
Is the Jewellery Quarter a good area to stay in Birmingham?
It is the quietest of the genuinely central options. The streets are residential and workshop-lined rather than commercial, the restaurants are good and local and not chain-led, and it has both its own railway station and its own tram stop, so the centre stays about twenty minutes away on foot.
How far is the Jewellery Quarter from Birmingham New Street?
Roughly twenty minutes on foot, or a few minutes on the Midland Metro tram from Grand Central. Jewellery Quarter station is on the line out towards The Hawthorns, which makes it one of the easier parts of the city to arrive in and leave again without a car of any kind.
What is there to do in the Jewellery Quarter?
The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is the reason most visitors come: a workshop that closed in 1981 and was left with its benches, tools and unfinished work in place. St Paul's Square, the last Georgian square in the city, sits a few streets away and is ringed with places to eat.
Is the Jewellery Quarter still a working area?
Yes, and that is what separates it from a preserved district. Jewellery is still made and sold in the same three-storey brick workshops, with their large upper windows built so that precious metal could be worked by daylight, not by lamp. The trade thinned over the decades but it never left.
Is the Jewellery Quarter inside the Clean Air Zone?
Yes. The zone covers everywhere inside the A4540 Middleway ring road and the Jewellery Quarter sits well within it, so a non-compliant vehicle pays ten pounds a day around the clock. The tram and the station between them make this one of the easier areas in the city to visit without driving at all.