It was a bright, dry but cold day today. It was my wife Jane’s birthday (on Monday actually) and she fancied a trip somewhere with just us 4 going along. We realised it had been years since we had been to the Black Country Living Museum and off we went.
What this museum did was to to collect buildings from all over the black country – often ones scheduled for demolition or boarded up and move them brick by brick to the site and then rebuild them so that they feel like a real village. Then they fill the village with staff that know all about the buildings and bring them to life. So the chip shop really cooks Fish and chips and what wonderful chips they are – done in terribly unhealthy beef dripping that make them taste superb. Many houses will have fires and ranges lit and “housewifes” ready to explain what life was like eighty or a hundred years ago.
We saw a chain being made in the foundry, bread being baked in the bakery bread oven and bought old fashioned sweets from the sweet shop. The school has a strict teacher i ready to shout at you if you do wrong!
You can go down the coal mine and see how terrible conditions were. We also went on a boat through the tunnels where they mined limescale and we also watched a silent movie in the cinema.
I think my favourite building is the pharmacy – it always sparks professional interest. I let my eyes wander across the jars and see how many are familiar to a GP today and how many obscure and unknown.
Well worth the visit – and a ticket allows unlimited return trips in a year.
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