Black Country Museum

Yesterday I successfully negotiated the 21 locks in the Wolverhampton flight - 5 hours of locking following a 2.5 hour cruise from the Black Country Museum to get to the start of the locks! So it was early to bed last night.

I spent Tuesday at the Museum. I'm not a great museum person. I tend to walk through them at normal outdoor walking speed and stop to look at one or two things that interest me. The exceptions are the Science Museum in London and, now, the Black Country Museum at Dudley - just outside Birmingham.

The museum represents (is?) a typical Black Country town in the early 20th century.

This was virtually a green-field site (actually a black field as it was covered with sewage sludge) with no buildings.

All of the buildings on the site (including the bridge you can see on the left hand side of this picture) were moved brick by brick from other locations and rebuilt in the museum. But the whole thing has been done so well that I still find it hard to believe. It would have been a wonderful achievement if they had just reconstructed the facades of the various houses and shops so that you could go into the front rooms.





But the real genius is that they have reconstructed everything including the typical junk that collects over many years. And, when you realize that there is nobody actually working in the buildings and sheds to create the junk, the naturalness of the whole thing is magnificent.









Apparently the faded cigarette ad on this building was on the bricks that were part of the building in its original location. When it was rebuilt the image was still there and has not been painted.







The shops and houses have all of the artefacts from the period - it really is like you have gone back in time.

It is a very large site with lots to see. Traditional chain making, a coal mine that you can go down, an old garage and vehicles, and a very early steam pumping engine, and more buildings are being reconstructed.

If you get a chance GO.