Taking a step back in time

 For the last couple of years we've visited the Autumn Show at the Malvern Three Counties Showground which is held on the last weekend in September.  With all the rain last week we were a bit reluctant, parking is on fields and although hubby drives a large 4x4 truck and we probably wouldn't get stuck, if other drivers did it could turn into hours to get off the parking area.  They show the same things every year and the stands are selling the same wares so we didn't feel as though we were missing out.

We decided instead to have a day out closer to home.

The Black Country Living Museum is only a few miles from where we live, I've visited on several occasions, with my children when they were younger and with the grandchildren.  I hadn't realised that Mark had never visited.  So that's where we decided to go.  

As the name suggests, it's a living museum where you can experience life as it was in The Black Country of years gone by.  The area known as The Black Country is in the West Midlands and the  Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton.   

Some people think Birmingham is part of the Black Country, it's not, and Black Country folk will always be happy to put you straight on this if you say it is 😁

The West Midlands was at the heart of the first Industrial Revolution and its name is thought to come about because of the air pollution from the factories and the black coal seams in the area.  Queen Victoria when she visited at age thirteen is said to have written in her diary;

The men, women, children country and houses are all black.  But I cannot by any description give an idea of it's strange and extraordinary appearance.  

The Black Country flag represents the areas industrial heritage with the black representing the coal dust, the red representing the fires from the furnaces, the chain represents the chain making which the area is famous for and the white cone shape representing the glass cones and iron furnaces that were a common sight.

It's been a good few years since I last visited the museum and there have been some new additions in the meantime to include a 1940-1960's high street, infant welfare centre and cast iron houses.

I loved the new high street with it's familiar shops, and it gives you a sense of how much things improved in living standards from just a few decades before.

The co-op supermarkets are still around, although not as small and friendly as this one would have been

Does anyone remember any of these?

I remember my granny having a block of green fairy soap, it was so big it was hard to hold in your hands, lol

If only they made chocolate boxes as pretty as this now

And others of you who are around my age will remember this horrid toilet paper they had in schools!  It just wasn't fit for purpose 😆

The newsagent's had some familiar chocolate, although the size and packaging has changed so much.  Look at the size of the crunchie and the penguin bar!

The Daily Mail was offering readers a chance to win a new car worth £1,250

The cast iron houses were a very popular attraction and I was unable get any photos of the insides.  These cast iron houses were built by Dudley council after WWI to meet the demand for housing when material and skilled workers were in short supply but they proved expensive to build and once the traditional brick became more available the council reverted to the cheaper option and the cast iron ones became experimental.

A lot of the buildings at the Black Country museum are original buildings, dismantled and re-built on site.  The clinic/welfare centre building however is a replica of the Lea Road Welfare Centre Wolverhampton opened in June 1928, as you can see they stayed true to the building design.

Image below taken from the BCLM facebook page

As soon as we walked in we were amazed that not only did the inside look like a baby clinic it SMELT like one!  I wasn't the only person to comment and ask how on earth they re-created the smell.  The volunteer couldn't give us an answer, only mentioned that there was a Box in the doctors office, we looked and couldn't find any box so are still none the wiser.

There were too many people around to get a photo of the room but it was set out exactly how I remember the one where I took my eldest daughter when she was a baby, the big weighing scales, various toys for the older children to play with and of course selling Farley's Rusks, Rose Hip syrup and Cow and Gate baby milk.

I remember my mum having a big Silver Cross pram when my youngest sister was born.  The Royal babies are still carried around in these beautiful prams, not at all practical for today of course, but they still lovely.

Knitting was a necessity more than a choice back then and there were lots of hand knitted cardigans and matinee coats on show as well as a lovely hand made dress and romper suit with hand sewn smocking, you can just see those on the end of the table in the second photo.

There are demonstrations and talks but we  had just missed one and were too early for the next one, perhaps I'll catch those on another visit.

I always find it fascinating to look around the older buildings, those dated before the 1930's, it's hard to imagine how people managed, it was certainly a much harder way of life.

We moan about having the clothes on the airer on rainy days, but imagine how long it would take for clothes to dry that had only been through the ringer!  

The Black Country Museum is used as the set for many of the scenes in Peaky Blinders

The setting for Charlies Yard in Peaky Blinders

There are various demonstrations as you walk around, nail making, chain making, brick making, all trades that the area is well known for.  My dad was a chain maker all his life, I remember going to see him in his chain shop and it was exactly how its set up here, such a  hard labour intensive job and a long process to make just one link of chain.  Today it's all done by machine so it's good to see how it was once done.

We had a great day out, entry wasn't cheap though at £25.95 each, but that does give you return visits for a whole year, so If you look at it like that It's really not so bad.

-X-