For immediate release:
Joseph Chamberlain’s Family Home Highbury open to the public.
The Chamberlain Highbury Trust have announced that Highbury in Moseley will be one of the historic buildings open to the public as part of the Heritage Open Day Events that take place in September. Heritage Open days are free to the public and form a network of historic buildings nationwide which are open to the public during the Heritage Open Days festival of the 8th to 11th September.
Highbury has not taken part in Heritage Open Days before, so this is an historic day for an historic piece of Birmingham’s civic, architectural and political history.
Joseph Chamberlain the industrialist was Lord Mayor of Birmingham and an MP for 38 years. He was the father of Austen who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and won the Nobel Peace prize, and of Neville who was Minister for Health and Chancellor of the Exchequer before becoming Prime Minister between 1937 to 1940.
Joseph Chamberlain built Highbury in 1878 in a unique setting close to Birmingham City Centre as his family home. The house and grounds were designed to give the illusion of the countryside whilst being close to Joseph’s political and industrial businesses. The house is full of unique arts and crafts detailing including stone carvings and terracotta, as well as wood carvings by William
Barfield, also decorative tiles and ornamental ironwork by John Hardman.
The house and grounds will be open to the public on Sunday 11th September from 11 until 4pm and will feature a number of events and activities for all ages. Tours of the house and grounds will be operating. There will be activities for families including nature walks and play sessions, beekeeping tutorials and woodworking demonstrations.
As part of the day the Trust will also be conducting the final aspect of their public consultation exercise on the restoration of Highbury which is estimated to require £7million of heritage funding and will see the house close for around one year from 2018 to 2019.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
https://chamberlainhighburytrust.wordpress.com
http://birminghamheritageweek.co.uk/11-sept/chamberlains-Highbury/