I recently took a short train ride from my home in Northfield to Stirchley. I went to visit my new colleagues, Sara and Christine, at the Stirchley School of Jewellery, where I had a tour of the workshop and the lovely little gallery at the front of the property.

The school is located on Pershore Road and is just a 5 minute walk from Bournville Train Station on the West Midlands line. This is a very up-and-coming area of Birmingham, with a great selection of cafes, bars and restaurants, a yoga studio, cookery school and lots more besides. Stirchley is very close to both Bournville (chi-chi streets and Cadbury’s) and Cotteridge (decent shopping area and a beautiful Victorian park), so I can quite understand why people are moving here.

I came out of the train station on Mary Vale Road and turned left, walking downhill to Pershore Road. The shop is next to the pedestrian crossing. It’s a modest shop front, painted a striking, bright blue, with a window display full of beautiful jewellery, hand-made by owner Sara Priesler and others.

Walk through the small gallery at the front of the building and you’ll find a neat and brightly lit workshop at the rear. It has space for 5 students, each sat at a workbench supplied with hand tools. Various other larger tools and machines are placed around the room. To the rear of the workshop is an office, a small staff kitchen (I’m told tea and coffee are plentiful!) and loo. I immediately noticed the blown-up photographs of happy students engrossed in jewellery making that adorn the walls of the workshop and the SSJ logo on the doors (a nice touch!).

I have a long history of attending arts and crafts classes. I’ve tried basket weaving (very hard on the thumbs!), most forms of printmaking (very satisfying), many forms of jewellery making (there are sooo many techniques out there!), stone carving (exhausting), spoon carving (beware the sharp knives) etc etc. Each class had their own pros and cons, but the ones that stick in my memory, and not in a positive way, are the overcrowded classes. I’ll give you an example. In the early 2000’s I joined a printing class at the Midland Arts Centre (admittedly before it was refurbished) that saw 25 people elbow-to-elbow, conference room style. There was just one printing press (not unusual, but with so many students it meant very little press-time for any of us) and no space for us lay out the large pieces of paper we were working with. We were bumping into each other, getting irritated and struggling to gain the attention of the tutor. So far, so frustrating.

So, my point is that with just 5 students per class, Stirchley’s set-up means more individual tutor time for each student - particularly helpful when you’re working with techniques or materials you’ve never encountered before.

I’m really impressed with what Sara and the team have done with this space. It’s modern, light and well arranged with everything that a student could possibly need to support a variety of jewellery techniques. The gallery is also very welcoming and while I was there on a mid-week morning numerous customers came in to browse and make enquiries. After only opening at the start of September the school already feels like an established part of the high street, and long may it continue.

To book classes at the Stirchley School of Jewellery visit stirchleyschoolofjewellery.co.uk