Black Country Museum Vouchers 2 for 1 2016
In a nutshell
Over 50 buildings from around the Black Country – including a pub, Methodist chapel, school and shops – have been dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt to create a late 19th-century Black Country village in an open-air museum in Dudley. The 26-acre site was chosen because it was already home to a stretch of canal and disused lime kilns and a coal mine – all cornerstones of the industrial revolution.
Fun fact
The Black Country was the first place to successfully harness the power of steam, and changed world in doing so. The museum has the world's only full-scale replica of the [Thomas] Newcomen engine, invented 1712, which is the size of a house. See more Black County facts here.
What's special about it?
The emphasis is on the living bit in title, so it feels more like a vibrant and fun recreation of the "olden days", as George, my six-year-old son, described it, rather than a museum. The staff, some of whom are volunteers, are in costume and in character, so in the Victorian classroom the teacher gives a mini lesson; the blacksmith pulls red-hot iron from the furnace and hammers it into chain links (there were once 5,000 chain-makers in the area, and 50,000 nail-makers); you can walk down the disused drift coal mine; play on a small old-fashioned fun fair; and catch a tram or trolley bus from the entrance down to the "village".
What about lunch?
Brilliantly, eating and drinking is all part of the experience. So Hobb's, the 1930s chippy, serves delicious beef-fat-fried fish and chips for a reasonable £5.90 and the Bottle & Glass pub does a decent pint of Banks's mild for a less reasonable (for these parts, anyway) £4. There's also an 1870s bakery (which gives demonstrations) and a sweet shop next door selling old-school homemade fudge, rhubarb-and-custards, bom-boms and the like from big glass sweet jars. For party-poopers, there's a standard cafe serving fare you'd find at any other attraction.
Exit through the gift shop?
Naturally, but nearly everything in it is tasteful or educational – books, period toys and games etc – which meant George, in search of souvenir tat, struggled to spend his fiver.
Getting there
The museum is three miles off the M5 and one mile from Tipton railway station, which is on the Birmingham to Wolverhampton line. Incidently, when Queen Victoria was a girl and rode this stretch of railway, she asked for the curtains to be drawn as she found the poverty and industrial landscape so depressing. Don't think she'd be a big fan of the museum then …
Value for money?
Online prices (you pay £1 or £2 more on the door): adults £15.50; concessions £12.20; children (5-16 years) £7.25; families £45 (2 + 3) or £32 (1 +3); carers £8.25; car parking £3. Very good value considering you could spend a day here, and tickets are valid for unlimited visits 12 months from purchase (many people come back just for the fish and chips) and include daytime events and activities.
Opening times
10am-4pm, Wednesday to Sunday from November to Easter; 10pm-5pm seven days a week the rest of the year.
Verdict
I'd give it 10/10 but then this was real a nostalgia trip for me: in the 25 years since my last visit the museum has moved in a row of small terrace houses identical to the one my mom, nan and half our family was born in, plus the actual swimming baths (Rolfe Street in Smethwick, a "striking example of late 19th-century civic architecture") where I learnt to swim. So I asked George and Millie, his nine-year-old cousin, for their verdict: they gave it 9 and 8.5 respectively – which is about right. A bostin' day out.
Black Country Museum Vouchers 2 for 1 2016
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/oct/19/black-county-living-museum-dudley-family-trip
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