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A busy day for walking tours in Birmingham today, in Victoria Square the start point for our standard City Centre Walk, the second day of the Colmore Business District Food Festival was in full swing. A quick break for a coffee from one of Birmingham’s great independent coffee shop Urban Coffee Company, followed by a three pie selection from The Old Joint Stock. Then a quick look around the festival before going to the starting point for the food themed afternoon tour.
At 2:00 I met up with my guests for one of Midlands Discovery Tours specialist walks, 1000 Tastes 1 City Tour. Having spotted Glynn Purnell, described by Olive magazine as the Yummie Brummie on his food stall, I asked if he would be kind enough to come over and talk with the group, which he duly obliged.
He told us how as an 11 year old he had written a note of his plans to become “a cook and have famous people at my Birmingham Restaurant”, and how the note had recently come to light when his dad found it in the loft of the family home. I asked if he could confirm that as a 14 year old he had experimented on his siblings, by putting Curry powder in their baked beans, yes he said along with onions and a few dried herbs. Clients today to his Cornwall Street restaurant can’t get the bean dish, as the critics of the original dish when he was 14 weren’t too complimentary, but judging by the long line of people at the Purnell food stall and of course the Michelin Star, todays experimental dishes get rave reviews from all that try them.
Two hours of walking and talking built up my appetite, so I made a bee line back to Victoria Square to try the Pigs cheeks, which were melt in the mouth, followed by Raspberry’s with a beautifully delicate meringue and whipped cream. Glynn Purnell, a great chef, a champion of the city of Birmingham, and a really nice bloke.
Michael, Midlands Discovery Tours
Sat in Urban Coffee Company planning our Food Festival walk for this Saturday. Tour starts at 2:00 from Victoria Square and will take in such important Birmingham food and beverage themes as Cadbury’s, Typhoo, Birds Custard, HP Sauce, the Balti Triangle, China Town and Michelin star rated Purnell’s
Although Andy Murray wasn’t able to stop Roger Federer winning his 7th Wimbledon Championship, Birmingham can be proud of its tennis connections.
In 1859 Birmingham Solicitor Harry Gem and his friend, Spanish merchant JBA Perera, used the size of the croquet lawn in Perera’s Ampton Road home in Edgbaston and drafted the rules for the game of lawn tennis.
They set up the first lawn tennis club in Leamington Spa, but were also members of Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society, which is the oldest lawn tennis club in the world.
Harry Gem is buried in Warstone Lane Cemetery in Birmingham, sadly the headstone was destroyed a number of years ago, and would have been left unmarked if it hadn’t been for the Harry Gem Project, a group of tennis fans and historians that aim to raise enough money to re-instate a headstone on Major Gems grave.
In 1877 Spencer William Gore, brother of Charles Gore, the 1st Bishop of Birmingham, won the very 1st Wimbledon Championship.
In this Olympic year, the tennis connections go further, in 1896 John Pius Boland a former pupil of the Birmingham Oratory School on the Hagley Road, traveled to Athens to spectate at the 1st modern Olympics. Whilst he was there he was asked if he would join the German tennis doubles player, whose partner had become ill. They made it to the final and won the Gold medal. Boland decided to enter the men’s singles and won Gold in that discipline to.
Chamberlain Square welcomes Robbie Savage. Hope he has the time to visit Vaugtons in The Jewellery Quarter where they make the Carling Cup medals. As it is finals weekend at Wimbledon he might visit the grave of Major Harry Gem, the man that invented Lawn Tennis. Both subjects are covered in our Jewellery Quarter Tour.
