To finish off my week off, I took my parents for a walk around Blists Hill Victorian Town, one of the museums at the historic Ironbridge Gorge.
Ironbridge Gorge is internationally renowned as being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and is a popular tourist attraction within the West Midlands, although surprisingly I haven’t visited any of the museums before. However I got my parents a gift experience for Christmas during lockdown which still hadn’t been used so we decided to visit Blists Hill Victorian Town.
The museum is a full recreation of a town around the turn of the 20th Century in 1900 and is a lovely place to have a wander around. The town has a number of shops, all of which have various goods which can be purchased from clothing, to ironmongery, to jams and preserves. Inside each shop there is also people dressed up in character more than happy to give you information about the history of the town and the shop that you are visiting. As well as the shops there is a school, a fish and chip shop and a pub.
There is also a bank where you can exchange modern day money for Pounds, Shillings and Pence to pay in old fashioned money (though you can also pay with modern prices if you like which we did as when we arrived the Bank didn’t seem to be open). However this is a really fun idea and I think adds to a sense of immersion if you do decide to trade your money for old-fashioned coins.
There are also plenty of things to do to keep the kids entertained, there’s an old-fashioned fairground and in the pub there is a sing-song which takes place around lunchtime. You can also head into the Blists Hill Mine which we didn’t do as my mum doesn’t like small, dark spaces as well as dress up for a portrait in the photographic studio. There are are also guided tours where you can learn more about the fascinating history of the town, although there are plenty of signs and a guidebook which can be purchased for your own guided tour as well.
We had a lovely wander around the town and my dad loved showing me the school as the desks were similar to the ones at his school in the 1950’s. We also purchased some sweets from the sweetshop and fruit loaf from the bakery which we ate at home.
Our gift experience also had two vouchers for the fish and chips at the chip shop which tasted amazing and I would highly recommend them and we also joined in the pub sing song with “don’t dilly dally on the way”.
It is a fantastic day out and we hope to use our annual passes to visit the other museums in the area very soon.
Below are some of my photos from the day.
