Hello and a very warm welcome from the

Heart of England Tourist Guides...

Hello and a very warm welcome from the

Heart of England Tourist Guides...

… Welcome from the Heart of England Tourist Guides. We represent the highest standard of tourist guiding in the Midlands and Cotswolds. Our mission is to give you the best guiding experience your money can buy. To find out where we go and why you should choose a Heart of England guide, read on.

Our local knowledge and experience

For the best stories, ask a local. Our guides live and breathe the Heart of England – our local knowledge will make any trip memorable and entertaining.

Our professional approach

We plan in advance to make sure that everything goes smoothly. If something goes wrong, we will deal with it.

Our familiarity with local conditions and facilities

Need to know the best places to stay? We do. Need to know the best places to eat? We do. Need to know which roads are closed, are impassable, or have weight limits? We do. This means you have complete peace of mind that the trip will go smoothly.

For more information about professional guiding, see:

The British Guild of Tourist Guides and Institute of Tourist Guiding

Explore historic cities
Travel the countryside
Discover fascinating stories

HIRE LOCAL GUIDES AND DRIVERS

The British tourism industry supports 2.6m jobs across the UK

GOV.UK – Nov 2019

Where is the Heart of England

heart-of-england

The Heart of England, “Midlands” includes the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and North Oxfordshire. A coastline is about the only natural feature you won’t find here and whatever the period in English history, the Heart of England will have played a part.

We’ve the largest piece of Roman building remaining in Britain (at Wroxeter) and a Saxon Chapel (Odda’s Chapel at Deerhurst). Want mediaeval castles? How about the stately opulence of Warwick Castle or the romantic ruins of Kenilworth or Ludlow Castles.

Literature

Well, you can’t really top having Shakespeare as a local! But just in case that’s not enough, we’ve also given the world David Garrick (Hereford), Samuel Johnson (Lichfield), George Eliot (Nuneaton & Coventry) and Ellis Peters (Shrewsbury) to name but a few.

Cathedrals

The “triple jewels” of the Midlands,’ the cathedrals of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester are as beautiful as any in England. But the unusual baroque of Birmingham, the three spires of Lichfield and Coventry’s emotive old and new together all add to the mix.

Historical set pieces

We were central to the Baron’s War, Wars of the Roses, Gunpowder Plot and the English Civil War and traces of conflicts from the Roman invasion to World War II are here to be discovered.

Of course the Midlands is truly the cradle of the Industrial Revolution which changed the world, a place where minds like Boulton, Watt, Newcomen and Wedgwood worked. Today, their heritage can be experienced in lively, informative and entertaining attractions like the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley and the collection of Ironbridge Gorge Museums in Shropshire. And just to prove that guiding is as much about the present and future as it is about the past, if you want to see what a rejuvenated, go-ahead city can look like, then take a look around the centres of Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry or Wolverhampton for starters and prepare to be amazed and impressed.

And as you’d expect in the home territory of Elgar and Holst (not to mention The Move, Slade, Led Zeppelin and ELO) there’s no shortage of arts and entertainment to be enjoyed here, too. Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and NEC Arena vie with the Cultural Quarter in Stoke and the historic ambience of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford, taking it in turns to host the Three Choirs Festival.

Stunning Countryside – Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

The Cotswolds with their honey coloured villages where you’ll still find plenty of sheep (the backbone of England’s medieval economy), the Malvern Hills, Cannock Chase, the steep woodlands of the Wye Valley (where the tourist industry was born) and the Shropshire hills, a geologist’s dream, with rocks from almost every geological period. The Stafordshire Moorlands in the north cover part of Britain’s first National Park, the Peak District.

How to find a Heart of England Guide