Cofton Hackett

Cadbury World

Bournbrook · 4.3 miles

Cadbury World is a visitor attraction in Bournville, Birmingham, England, featuring a self-guided exhibition tour, created and run by the Cadbury Company. The tour tells the history of chocolate, and of the Cadbury business.

The Leasowes

Webb's Green · 5.6 miles

A 57-hectare estate set on the edge of Webb’s Green, The Leasowes combines historic house, garden and open parkland within the Halesowen area. The name translates as “rough pasture land”, and the grounds are recorded on English Heritage’s Register of Parks and Gardens at Grade I. Part of the site is occupied by Halesowen Golf Club, while the remainder is maintained as a public park under the care of the local council. The landscape originated between 1743 and 1763 as a ferme ornée created by the poet William Shenstone, whose design aimed for an unadorned, pastoral feel that later attracted commentary from contemporary writers. After Shenstone’s death, Edward Horne acquired the property, replaced the original house with a new building completed around 1776 and added a walled garden and hothouse. Subsequent owners, including Major Francis Halliday, introduced features such as a stone portico and a whimsical hermitage, though later proprietors made little effort to preserve Shenstone’s original layout, leading to a period of decline by the 1820s. The council purchased the estate in 1934, converting it into a publicly accessible park while leasing part to the golf club. A restoration programme carried out from May 2008 to January 2009 reinstated many 18th-century elements and introduced a linear lake within the former Lapal canal, enhancing the historic scenery.

Lapworth Museum of Geology

Metchley · 5.6 miles

The Lapworth Museum of Geology is a geological museum run by the University of Birmingham and located on the university's campus in Edgbaston, south Birmingham, England. The museum is named after the geologist Charles Lapworth, its origins dating back to 1880. It reopened in 2016 following a £2.7 million redevelopment project that created new galleries and displays, as well as modern visitor and educational facilities.

Lightwoods Park

Beech Lanes · 6.8 miles

Set on the north-west side of Hagley Road, the grounds that now form Lightwoods Park were originally the estate of Lightwoods House, an 18th-century residence built in 1789 by merchant Jonathan Grundy. After passing through the Grundy and Willett families, the property was altered by industrialist George Caleb Adkins following his purchase in 1865. Following the death of Adkins’s widow in 1902, a local adult-school committee raised public funds to acquire the estate and present it to Birmingham Corporation, which opened the area as a public park by 1905. The house, a Grade II listed building, later housed the Hardman stained-glass company before being restored between 2015 and 2016 with support from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Big Lottery Fund. Restoration work returned the house to community use, adding a café and facilities for events, while the surrounding park received renewed attention to its bandstand, drinking fountains, walls, railings and pond. Today the park offers a skateboard ramp, a bowling green and a walled Shakespeare Garden featuring benches, flower beds and ponds. A plaque commemorating royal gardener John Tradescant the Younger, installed in 2012, marks the garden’s dedication to the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The bandstand, also Grade II listed, displays the Birmingham City crest. Management transferred to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council in 2010, and the site is accessed from Hagley Road near the Beech Lanes area; no admission fee is mentioned, and basic visitor facilities such as the café are available within the restored house.

Warley Woods Park

Warley Salop · 6.8 miles

Covering 100 acres, the public park in the Warley district of Smethwick lies about three miles west of Birmingham city centre, set in a small valley north of the A456 between Birmingham and Halesowen. Originally laid out by landscape designer Humphry Repton in the late 18th century, the grounds retain roughly one-third mature woodland and a nine-hole golf course occupying the western side. Although a stream once crossed the site, it has since been filled in. The park holds a Green Flag Award and has been grade II listed by Historic England since September 1994. The estate’s origins trace back to a possible post-dissolution Warley Hall, while the land was bought by Samuel Galton Jr in the 1790s. He commissioned Repton’s layout and a gothic-style house designed by Robert Lugar, later occupied by his son Hubert and, in the 1880s, by MP H.G. Reid. Birmingham City Council acquired the property in 1902 and opened it as a public park in 1906; the house, locally called “Warley Abbey”, was demolished in 1957. Management now rests with Warley Woods Community Trust, a charitable organisation leasing the park on a 99-year term from Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, itself a lessee of Birmingham City Council. The Trust operates The Pavilion at the southern end, providing a café, public meeting room, toilets and a golf shop, while a drinking fountain installed in 1907 was restored in 2009. Patrons include actors Julie Walters and Colin Buchanan, presenter Stuart Maconie and historian Carl Chinn.

Edgbaston Reservoir Local Nature Reserve

Ladywood · 7.5 miles

70 acre site, less than two miles from the City centre is a site of historic importance, designed and built by Thomas Telford in 1827 to supply his new Main Line Canal. Friends of the Reservoir came together in 1990 to protect and promote the site.