Surrounded by the footprints of vanished factories, the Millennium Point development incorporates this entertaining and ambitious attempt to make science accessible to children. Highlights include galleries on the past (Birmingham's industrial breakthroughs), present (how stuff works) and future, as well as an outdoor science garden and a planetarium.
Thinktank
Birmingham
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
18.84 MILES
Founded in 1068 by William the Conqueror, stunningly preserved Warwick Castle is Warwick's main attraction.
16.82 MILES
The evocative ruins of St Michael's Cathedral, built around 1300 but destroyed by Nazi incendiary bombs in the Blitz, stand as a memorial to Coventry's…
0.94 MILES
Resembling a glittering stack of gift-wrapped presents, the Francine Houben–designed Library of Birmingham is an architectural triumph. The 2013-opened…
16.71 MILES
This stupendous museum has hundreds of vehicles, from horseless carriages to jet-powered, land-speed-record breakers. There's a brushed-stainless-steel…
21.54 MILES
When Shakespeare retired, he swapped the bright lights of London for a comfortable town house at New Place, where he died of unknown causes in April 1616…
21.34 MILES
Start your Shakespeare quest at the house where the renowned playwright was born in 1564 and spent his childhood days. John Shakespeare owned the house…
2.81 MILES
At the University of Birmingham, 3 miles south of the city centre, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts has an astonishing collection of Renaissance…
14.21 MILES
Crowned by three dramatic towers, Lichfield Cathedral is a Gothic fantasy, constructed in stages from 1200 to 1350. The enormous vaulted nave is set…
Nearby Birmingham attractions
0.44 MILES
Run by local artists who focus on art as a powerful agent for change, cavernous Eastside Projects has a pronounced and thought-provoking lean towards…
0.49 MILES
Birmingham architect Alfred Chatwin designed this Victorian Gothic church in the Bullring. The 1873-completed structure occupies a site where a church has…
0.51 MILES
Just over a mile southeast of the city centre, Digbeth's creative quarter centres on the Custard Factory, a hip art-and-design enclave set in the…
0.55 MILES
Dedicated to St Philip, this small but perfectly formed cathedral was constructed in a neoclassical style between 1709 and 1715. Pre-Raphaelite artist…
0.71 MILES
Built in 1879 in classical style, the dome-topped Council House – the seat of local government – forms the northeastern face of the city centre.
0.72 MILES
Public art in Victoria Sq includes modernist sphinxes and artist Dhruva Mistry's 1994-installed fountain, The River. Topped by a naked female figure, it's…
0.73 MILES
Quirky tours of this cluster of restored back-to-back terraced houses take you through four working-class homes, telling the stories of those who lived…
0.73 MILES
Victoria Sq's 1993 fountain The River, aka 'the floozie in the Jacuzzi', is overlooked by this disapproving statue of Queen Victoria.