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As I shoved my face towards the reverse of an ornate grate high above the very first rooms you enter in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, I found myself holding my breath.

I'd walked through the gallery a million times, my eyes always on the statue of Lucifer or the domed ceiling, light shining through the glass and down on to some of our city's finest treasures.

And yet I'd never noticed the secret hidey hole from down on ground level. The Museum turned 140 last week and, like all of the greatest old Victorian masterpieces, it has its secrets.

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Secrets that are being uncovered for the select few lucky enough to nab a spot on one of its Hidden Spaces Tours, that promis

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