#Birmingham is a fascinating place with a fascinating history and heritage

1. MYTHS ABOUT BIRMINGHAM: CITY OF ENLIGHTENMENT
1. 'Birmingham has more miles of canal than Venice'
Although often disputed and spoken about as though it's just a
wild claim, this turns out to be true. Venice has 26 miles of canal
while Birmingham runs ahead with 35 miles.
And the entire Birmingham Canal Navigations system-a network
of waterways connecting Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the
eastern part of the Black Country - has 114 miles of navigable
water. Even that is less than the 174 miles it had at its peak in the
18th century.
However, Birmingham is far larger than Venice so, based on the
concentration of canals, Venice comes out in front on that score.
But looking at water volume and depth measurements, more
cubic metres of water pass through Birmingham's canals than any
other city in the world.
2. 'Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit while he
was living in Birmingham'
Not quite. The acclaimed author JRR Tolkien spent his childhood in
the city and found much inspiration for the books while here,
including Moseley Bog which was the basis for the Old Forest
where Tom Bombadil lived in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Perrott’s Folly - a 30m tower built by John Perrott in 1758 - and
the brick chimney at Edgbaston Waterworks are thought to have
inspired the Two Towers that gave their name to the second book
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
His harrowing experiences during the First World War, including
the loss of friends he had made at Birmingham's King Edward's
School, were the main influence behind the battle scenes in Lord of
the Rings.
But he never wrote the books while here in Birmingham. It was
during his time at Pembroke College,Oxford that he penned The
Hobbit and the first two volumes of Lord of the Rings, while living
at 20 Northmoor Road in north Oxford (where a blue plaque was
placed in 2002). He had moved on to Merton College, Oxford,
when he completed the third volume.

2. 3. 'Charlie Chaplin was born in a gipsy caravan in Smethwick'
As unlikely as it might seem, silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin
was born in a gipsy caravan in Smethwick according to a radio
documentary broadcast in 2011.
It was said that Chaplin's daughter Victoria found a letter making
the bizarre claim that he was born in a caravan belonging to the
gipsy queen on the Black Patch in Smethwick, on the border of
Birmingham.
There is no official record of the comic actor's birth, although he
believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in south London.
When Chaplin’s alleged communist sympathies were investigated by
M15, they could not find a birth certificate for Charlie or his
supposed alias Israel Thornstein. The investigation concluded
that "Chaplin was either not born in this country or that his name
at birth was other than those mentioned." So this remains a
mystery.
4. 'Birmingham has more trees than Paris'
Cynics might scoff at a comparison of Birmingham and Paris, but
the assertion has been made.
It could be tough to prove, though - has anyone ever counted all
the trees in both cities?
However, the Paris tourist office tells us: "With more than 400
parks and gardens, Paris is the most wooded capital in Europe".
But Wikipedia lists a more modest number of green spaces for the
French capital: two woodlands, 16 parks and 21 gardens.
So how does Birmingham compare? According to the city
council's website, there are nearly 600 parks and other public
open spaces in the city.
However, there’s no clue to tree coverage in the two cities and we
can't see anyone rushing around counting them any time soon.
Either way, this story sounds like it’s quite possible.
5. 'There was a red-light area at the back of Rackhams'

3. Preserved in the local sayings of Birmingham is the tale of a red-
light spot at the back of the city centre's Rackham's store, now
House of Fraser, before the area was pedestrianised.
'She'll be round the back o'Rackhams' might be said of someone
accused of being promiscuous. 'I'll end up round the back o
'Rackhams' might be heard if a woman jokingly felt she would be
forced into prostitution to pay all the bills. The Two Towers
Birmingham brewery even named a real ale Bhacker Ackhams after
the infamous location.
It seems to be universally accepted that there was such a place
behind the store. But does anyone want to come forward and
admit to knowing for sure that it was there?
6. 'West Bromwich Albion's ground is the highest stadium in
England'
Locals have often declared that West Bromwich Albion’s
ground The Hawthorns is the highest football stadium in England.
And this is true. At an altitude of 551 feet (168 m) above sea level,
it is the highest ground of all the Premier League and Football
League clubs.
7. 'Birmingham is named after the Ingas of Birm'
At first this sounds too daft to be true. Ingas sounds like a
Brummie version of the Incas, a sun-worshipping civilisation that
once lived in south America, and it has the whiff of a made-up
explanation.
But, in fact, it's on the right track. Historians say an Anglo-Saxon
tribe called the Beormingas (meaning ‘Beorma’s people') settled
in the area in the 6th or early 7th century.
Beorma was a Saxon leader, inga is a Saxon word for "a group of
people" and ham means village so Birmingham thus translates as
"home of the people of Beorma."
8. 'Birmingham has the most lap dancing clubs of any UK
city'
A dubious honour, but is it true?

4. We reported in January how a fourth club planned on the city's
Golden Mile sparked outcry.
And by the latest count there’s a total of seven lap dancing
venues in the city at present, including one on the Hagley Road
operated by Spearmint Rhino, the world-famous chain of strip
clubs.
There's no way of knowing for sure, but seven in one city does
sound like it's enough to be a winner.
9. 'Birmingham once had a Gun Quarter'
Yes, and it still does, though in a much smaller form. While the
neighbouring Jewellery Quarter has more than 100 shops and the
Chinese Quarter has an array of restaurants and the colourful
Chinese New Year celebrations, The Gun Quarter is now a small
hub of manufacturers and dealers so it has a much lower profile.
Birmingham had for many years been at the centre of the world's
gun-manufacturing industry, specialising in the production of
military firearms and sporting guns. The quarter developed
around St Mary's Church in the late 1700s and early 1800s and
made millions of weapons that were used in the Napoleonic Wars,
Crimean War, American Civil War and the First and Second
World Wars.
In the 1960s, a large part of The Gun Quarter was demolished by
city planners, with the area split in two by the Birmingham Inner
Ring Road.
Today only a handful of gun manufacturers and traders remain in
the Gun Quarter. The last remaining large gun and rifle
manufacturer in the area is Westley Richards.
In 2011, Birmingham City Council caused an outcry when it
planned to the rename the area as St George & St Chad's
Quarter, apparently because residents wanted to distance the
area from gun crime. The plan never went ahead.

5. Gunsmiths in Birmingham's Gun Quarter round 1900 at the factory of WW Greener in St
Marys Row
10. 'Birmingham once had a group who met at full moon and
were called lunatics'
Some of you might be tempted to joke that this must refer to the
city council or some other public authority in the area. But we
have to go back a bit further in time for the answer to this one.
Prominent industrialists, inventors, scientists and philosophers
used to meet in the region, between 1765 and 1813, and called
themselves firstly the Lunar Circle and then the Lunar Society of
Birmingham.
This dinner club of distinguished intellectuals gathered at venues
including Birmingham's Soho House, home of industrialist Matthew
Boulton; Great Barr House in Walsall, home of arms manufacturer
Samuel Galton Jr; and the Lichfield home of physician and
philosopher Erasmus Darwin, whose grandson Charles Darwin
developed the theory of evolution.

6. They did indeed get together when there was a full moon and this
was because the extra light from the moon made their night-time
journey home safer and easier, in the days before street lamps.
Because of this the members did jokingly refer to themselves as
‘Lunarticks’. The word lunatics already existed and had been
coined more than 1,000 years earlier when the moon was
believed to be a trigger for mental disorders.
Membership of the society does not seem to have been fixed and
historians disagree on who was in the group while some doubt it
actually existed. But one document has claimed: "All the world
came to Soho to meet Boulton, Watt (inventor and mechanical
engineer James Watt) or Small (physician and natural philosopher
William Small), who were acquainted with the leading men of
science throughout Europe and America."
11. 'There was a gipsy curse on Birmingham City Football
Club ground'
It’s claimed that in 1906 a 100-year gipsy curse was placed on St
Andrew’s, the ground of Birmingham City Football Club, by
Romany people who were angry at being evicted from the site so
that the new stadium could be built. Generations of struggle did
indeed follow.
Ron Saunders painted the bottom of players’ boots red and hung
crucifixes on the floodlights and Barry Fry claimed he urinated in
all four corner quadrants in bids to rid the curse, but such
measures had little impact.
The curse was due to end on Boxing Day in 2006 and indeed
Blues won their home fixture against Queens Park Rangers that
day. Promotion to the Premier League followed and then there
was the 2011 Carling Cup win - Blues first major piece of
silverware for 48 years.
One must wonder whether that curse really did ever go away,
though. One look at their current situation and you certainly
wouldn't think so.
12. 'Brummie and Black Country accents are the same'

7. While no one in Birmingham and the Black Country would say
this, it's a commonly held belief outside the region.
The latest example of the stereotype over the accents and
dialects in the Midlands was in the Hotels4U advert,
which provoked a furious response from people in the region.
Brummies labelled the ad offensive but others say the accent is
more Black Country.
And that highlights a wider myth that the Brummie and Black
Country accents are the same. However, the differences aren't as
obvious today - because of the breakdown of clearly separated
local cultures through urban growth, population mobility and the
more diverse nature of the city. Many of the same words and
phrases are used in both dialects these days.
Actor Rod Fox dressed as Gandalf at Moseley Bog
13. 'Birmingham is the birthplace of custard'
This is true. Although custard made by mixing milk and eggs and
thickening it over heat had been invented in the Middle Ages, it
was Alfred Bird who developed the modern egg-free version in
1837 because his wife was allergic to eggs.

8. Bird instead used a cornflour-based powder added to milk. After
he discovered his custard was popular, Bird formed Alfred Bird
and Sons Ltd in Birmingham.
The original factory is long gone but a larger manufacturing
operation that he established in Gibb Street, to meet demand for
the yellow dessert, is still there and was turned into the Custard
Factory arts centre.
As the Custard Factory website states: "The Custard Factory is
set in 15 acres of beautifully renovated riverside factories, built
more than 100 years ago by Alfred Bird to manufacture and
market his famous invention, eggless custard.
"At one time he had a thousand people making the stuff and was
exporting it across the globe. However, following the rationing and
production limits imposed by World War Two, the company was
taken over and in 1964 production relocated to Banbury and the
factories fell derelict."
So next time you pour custard on your pudding, you can be proud
that you are tucking into a piece of Birmingham's past.
14. 'Was Birmingham once the capital of England?'
We have no idea where this notion originated, but we know for a
fact that this question was recently among the top Google
searches relating to Birmingham.
We’re wondering if there had been a quiz somewhere that
prompted schoolchildren or TV viewers to take to the internet and
search for information on this.
Just to be clear, Birmingham has never been a capital of England.
Alongside London, only Colchester and Winchester have ever
been national capitals as far as we can tell.
15. 'Birmingham is officially the most congested city in the
UK'
It might feel like it when you are stuck for ages on the city's roads.
But the claim isn't true according to experts.

9. Sat-nav manufacturers Tom Tom revealed in November 2013 that
Birmingham comes 12th on the league table of congested UK
cities, with congestion about the same as in a similar study in
2012.
In 2010, Birmingham came fifth, suggesting that congestion is
easing in the city rather than getting worse. So this is not true.
16. 'Dozens of Spitfire planes built in Birmingham were
buried in Burma'
It has been claimed that Lord Louis Mountbatten - Supreme Allied
Commander of South East Asia Command during the Second
World War - had ordered the burial of at least 36 Castle
Bromwich-built Spitfires that had been shipped to Burma in 1945.
The fighter planes were never needed because the Second World
War ended the same year they arrived and it’s said they were
buried to avoid the effort and expense of sending them back to
the UK.
Attempts to find the hoard of unused aircraft have proved fruitless
and it’s now thought to be just a myth. But others believe the
planes are just well hidden and so the search continues.
17.' Birmingham is the most landlocked city in the UK'
By our reckoning, this is not true.
Birmingham's nearest beach is 105 miles away at Weston-super-
Mare.
Coventry also claims to be further from the sea than any other city
in the UK, and it's been calculated that Coventry's nearest beach is
116 miles away at Hunstanton. That greater distance makes it
more landlocked than Birmingham.

10. Cluedo inventor Anthony Pratt, from Kings Heath
18. 'Cluedo was invented in Birmingham'
Yes, it's true. The murder mystery board game was invented in
1944 by Anthony E. Pratt, a solicitor's clerk from Birmingham. He
originally called the game 'Murder!'
Pratt was born at 13 Brighton Road, Balsall Heath, and educated
at St Philip’s School in Edgbaston.
While employed in a Birmingham engineering factory during the
Second World War, he was so bored with his drilling job that he
started to daydream about inventing a new game.
During the war, evenings were spent huddled indoors behind
blackout curtains and Pratt wanted to come up with something
interesting for people to do.
Before the war, he had worked as a musician playing piano
recitals in country houses, where murder mystery games were
also held, and that gave him the idea for the whodunnit format.

11. Pratt and his wife presented the invention to games manufacturer
Waddingtons, who snapped it up and renamed it Cluedo. It was
patented in 1947 and went on sale in 1949.
19. 'Clint Eastwood once visited Birmingham'
Another story that's true. The famous actor and director Clint
Eastwood was photographed on Smallbrook Queensway in 1967.
The five-time Oscar-winning actor, famous for roles in The Good,
Bad and the Ugly, Dirty Harry and Gran Torino was in
Birmingham promoting one of his films.
He was pictured looking over the railings of the city ring road,
which had begun to take shape a decade earlier in 1957.
And he's not the only star to have visited Birmingham.
Brad Pitt visited an old friend at a law firm in Hall Green, Lady Gaga
bought everyone drinks in a Birmingham pub, Michael Buble went
to see a movie at the New Street Odeon, and George Clooney
turned up at Star City.
Among other celebrity sightings in Birmingham, Katy Perry went to
watch the Ghostbusters movie at the city’s Electric Cinema, Colin
Farrell had a night out at the Gatecrasher club, and Robbie
Williams enjoyed a balti in Sutton Coldfield.
20. 'The Peaky Blinders gang didn’t really exist'
As the BBC's new family crime drama Peaky Blinders came to our
TV screens in 2013 and showed a gang who supposedly roamed
the streets of Birmingham in the years after the First World War,
we looked at the fact and the fiction behind the series.
It didn't all happen as depicted in the programme.
On April 9, 1890, a letter in a newspaper said an attack had been
carried out by members of the “Small Heath Peaky Blinders”. So
we know at least the name of the gang was real.
This seems to be the first mention of the gangs who operated in
1890s Birmingham and which were infamous for their violence
and fighting with metal-tipped boots, stones, belt buckles and
sometimes knives.

12. Although they disappeared before the First World War and
apparently did not exist in the 1920s - a contrast to the setting of
the TV series - their reputation ensured they would not be
forgotten.
Doubt has been cast on the claim that they stitched cut-throat
razors into the peak of their caps and used them as weapons.
Nothing of the kind is mentioned in contemporary newspaper
reports and this may have been an embellishment that arose from
John Douglas’s novel, A Walk Down Summer Lane, set in the
inter-war years.
So the Peaky Blinders did exist but it seems they were not around
in the 1920s and 1930s and probably didn't put razors in their
caps.
21. 'There was once a vampire stalking the streets of
Birmingham'
In December 2004, there were stories of an attacker - described
as black and in his 20s - who bit another man walking along a
street in the Ward End area of Birmingham and then pounced on
neighbours who came to the victim’s aid. One woman was said to
have had a chunk of flesh bitten out of her hand.
In the following weeks, the media were contacted by people in
Saltley, Small Heath and Alum Rock who had heard of similar
attacks in their areas, including residents being bitten as they
answered their doors.
There were claims that the nocturnal predator had red eyes, could
become invisible, could transform into a dog and also that he had
actually bitten a dog. Some claimed he had contracted rabies
from a dog bite and wanted to transmit it to others in the same
way.
The story spread across the internet in January 2005 where one
commenter wrote, seemingly in all seriousness: "Anyone know if
the bitten people also transform into vampires? As a safety
measure, if you see anyone coming towards you with a Brummie
accent, run 'em over or run for your life."

13. Father Anthony Rohan of the Holy Family Catholic Church in
Small Heath wasn't taking any chances, saying: "I heard the story
in the barber’s. They asked me if I believed in vampires and I said
no. I’m not worried, though. I’ve got a lot of crucifixes in the
house."
But police debunked the blood-curdling claims as the story spread
and fear started to grow in the city.
"To date we have not received any reports from people stating
they have been bitten. This appears to be an urban myth," a
spokesman told the Birmingham Mail at the time.