... To celebrate and commemorate this most significant of periods in British history there are no less than eleven museums along a five mile stretch of the river Severn within the gorge, one of which is Blists Hill Victorian Town, the one I'm gonna tell you about.
So, grab a bowl of rabbit stew ... Read review
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It's funny isn't it? You travel the country, possibly even the world, searching for new things to see & do and new places to visit but you often tend to neglect what's on your own doorstep, right? Take me for example, I live in Telford, have done all my life. Now Telford isn't exactly what you'd call a 'tourism mecca', you wouldn't come here for your Summer holidays anyway, but cutting a swathe through what would otherwise be a fairly run-of-the-mill new-town is the Ironbridge Gorge and it's down here - away from all the housing estates, the shopping centres and the business parks - that things become a little more interesting and a little more individual.
As the roadsigns that lead into the area would have you believe, Telford is 'The Birthplace of Industry'. You see it was within the Ironbridge Gorge that the industrial revolution began - you know, Abraham Darby, Thomas Telford, the process of smelting of iron ore - all that stuff. You may have learnt a bit about it at school. Oh, and of course, there's the world's first cast-iron bridge, hence the name Ironbridge, geddit? Anyway, I digress. To celebrate and commemorate this most significant of periods in British history there are no less than eleven museums along a five mile stretch of the river Severn within the gorge, one of which is Blists Hill Victorian Town, the one I'm gonna tell you about. So, grab a bowl of rabbit stew off the stove, kick off your moccasins and prepare to journey back in time 200 years to a time when life was simple, when the air was clean and when the microwave, the TV, the electric lightbulb and consumer-based, opinion websites were a far-away pipe dream.
To say I hadn't ever been there before is a lie, being within walking distance of where I went to school it was an ideal location for many a school outing. I have vague memories of going to meet farmyard animals, writing stories and drawing pictures based on that morning's visit to Blists Hill museum (and to the best of my knowledge, my charcoal sketch of 'The Tollhouse' still hangs on the wall in my primary school corridor) but I'd never been there since, despite the fact that I drive past there several times a week. Until, that is, about a year ago when Trampus was in the 'hood and yours truly was appointed the task of keeping her (somewhat overactive) imagination from grinding to a halt through lack of stimulation.. So, Blists Hill Victorian Town it was. Not only was it the ideal way to educate the Trampster on some of the local history, it was also a chance for me to revisit my schooldays from 20 years previously and to see if the Tollhouse was as I remembered it.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting a wildly enthralling day. There's no rollercoasters for a start but aside from that I'm not really a huge history buff. The idea of wading around in the mud for an afternoon, while some boring old fossil regales us with tales about life in the Olde Days didn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm. However, the two of us were very pleasantly surprised by what Blists Hill has to offer.
In a nutshell Blists Hill is a working museum, a living recreation of a small Victorian town circa 1770. Within its 50 or so acres are numerous exhibits and attractions that are infinitely more interesting than anything usually associated with the word 'museum'. It's built on a site that was originally at the hub of the industrial activity at the time so some of the buildings are the actual remains of furnaces, mills and foundries etc.. while others are recreations built from original plans & materials. In some cases (such as the aforementioned Tollhouse) they have been taken down, transported and rebuilt brick-by-brick from elsewhere in the region, no doubt at huge cost.
So what can you expect from your day at Blists Hill? Well, the ticket office/gift shop is fairly formula stuff, a modern building with two or three smartly-dressed ladies sat behind a glass partition and the usual array of souvenir mugs/boxes of fudge/novelty hats adorning the shelves. However, once you've handed over your 8 quid and gone through the glass door at the other end, it's like you've slipped through a time warp. Laid out before you is a cobbled, Victorian street lined with authentic and fully operating shops while numerous, costumed employees go about their old-fashioned daily duties as if it were entirely normal. Depending on the weather, there may be horse-drawn carriages trotting up and down, ferrying guests on sightseeing trips around the site. For the full-on, Olde Worlde experience you can exchange your modern currency at the traditional Lloyds bank for the currency of the period which can be used in ALL of the shops, cafe's and workshops on site (any old money left over can be exchanged back into real money at the end of your visit). If you REALLY fancy getting into the spirit of things, you can even hire authentic, period costumes for the duration of your trip.
The beauty of these shops and workshops is that most of them are genuine businesses whose owners are trying to make a living, businesses that specialise in the traditional wares and crafts of the period. There's a wrought-iron worker for example, who fashions and supplies things like iron railings, gates and staircases. We met a young lady who specialised in making hand-crafted, plaster figurines and learnt that she sells hundreds a year to craft shops all over the country. A brief chat with the baker (who makes the most fabulous Cornish pastie!) revealed that he was, in fact, self employed and not directly on the museum payroll. Other delights on the main street include a chemist that sells all manner of traditional (and sometimes really rather bizarre!) remedies for every ailment imaginable (oak-bark granules for piles, anyone?), an old fashioned pub, a lovely little cake shop & confectioners and a grocer whose shelves are stocked with all the familiar household brands but all in the original, old fashioned packaging. What makes the experience all the more enjoyable is not the depth and variety of history on offer, but the passion and enthusiasm that the demonstrators so clearly display when you take an interest. The candlestick maker, for example, had a small group of us enthralled for nearly half an hour with his energetic (and sometimes rather gruesome!) descriptions of where the 'tallow' came from to make the candles, how the machinery worked and how a young candlestick maker from the time (a certain William Fortnum) supplied the entire royal household with candles made on "this very machine". So when the electric lightbulb came along and candles went out of fashion, young William upped and headed off for London in search of a new enterprise, met up with a certain Mr Mason and yes, you've guessed it, Fortnum & Mason was born. (For those not in the know, Fortnum & Mason is a bit like Marks & Spencer, only posher). So you see? I even managed to learn something on the day.
I could go on, there are many more interesting and eye-opening exhibits at Blists Hill - too many too list in detail - but make sure you check out the doctors surgery if you wanna see something grim and don't miss the 'hay inclined plane' which is tucked away in the woods at the bottom of the site and is easily overlooked. "What the hell is a hay inclined plane"? - you may ask. Well, it's like one of those mountain-side railways/cable-car thingies but this one was used to carry bargeloads (boat and all) of raw material (coal, iron-ore etc...) from the river Severn at the bottom to the canal system at the top (400ft up a 45 degree slope!). As a testament to the engineering skills of the Victorians, this takes some beating. In fact, as a testament to our Victorian ancestors in general - their lifestyle, their inginuity and their remarkable legacy - Blists Hill as a whole takes some beating.
Is it worth travelling the length of the country just to come and visit Blists Hill? Probably not, it's only a mornings or an afternoons worth of entertainment. Is it worth making a weekend of it and visiting all 11 museums in the Ironbridge Gorge? Possibly, if history, Victoriana and that sort of thing floats your boat, why not? Is it worth visiting if you happen to be in the area with an afternoon to kill? Definitely, there are far less interesting things you could be spending your 8 quid on.
All in all then, a solid thumbs up from the Spikester. Interesting, educational and really rather enjoyable - I might even go again soon. And to think, it's been right here on my doorstep all this time. Makes you wonder what other local attractions you might have overlooked, doesn't it? Watch this space...
Spike.
*Incidentally it's Ciao that can't spell, not me - the correct spelling is Blists Hill, NOT Blist Hills.
Advantages: A good day out Disadvantages: Far too nice in some aspects
The Blists Hill Victorian town near Ironbridge, Shropshire, has a problem.
It says it wants to teach children about life in a Victorian town, but odes it reall want ot do this?
There are buildings and there are workshops, a pub and so forth. But does Blists Hill Victorian Town tell the real story of what it would have been like to live in a small Victorian town?
I do not think it does. It fails because it totally ignores the very real danger of ... ...infirmity, poverty, old age or the like. Far form being an age in which the older were cherished, the old were often treated in shocking way, dumped into institutions that were often no better than prisons.
Old couples, perhaps who had been married for 50 years or more were callously and brutally split up in workhouses, made to live in single sex accommodation. If you were poor in Victorian Britain it was somehow seen to be your fault. No matter ...
Martinscholes 17.08.2004
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Advantages: There's always a man who although only visiting, his clothes make him fit in really well. Disadvantages: The smell, oh dear lord the Smell!
a complete chance that we stopped for the day at BlistHillsVictorianTownMuseum, which is not far from lots of places and roads that we went on.
In the interests of information provision, we accidentally drove down the A500 from Telford and caringly followed the lovely brown signs that hypnotised father into stopping.
Rumour has it that all roads that lead to Rome also pass these brown signs and you will eventually find BlistHills. Look for the big Iron bridge, whom has an inspirationally unique name, christened by locals who called it ?IronBridge?.
Those of you who wish to punish these locals are out of luck, as they are conveniently all dead now, and they did build the thing in 1779.
BlistHills is on of a total of nine attractions siphoning a living from the IronBridge Gorge, where incidentally the Industrial revolution started.
It ...
Advantages: A large number of attractions... Disadvantages: ...which are all very similar
Under the title Ironbridge Gorge Museum there are a number of different museums all located close to the River Severn as it passes close to Telford. The total area of the museums is about 6 miles and n-one could feasibly see them all in a day. There is therefore a passport system which enables you to visit them all over as many days in the following 12 months as you wish. This passport costs £10 for adults and £6 for children. I appreciate this is a lot to fork out for a family and a family ticket at £30 is only really good value if you have more than 2 children (it pays for up to 5 kids) but if you get more than 2 days out of the ticket then you have probably got your moneys worth. A single site ticket is available but only useful if you know your visit is a one-off.
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BlistsHill
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Advantages: Beautiful Scenery, Historic building, good food, good pubs, educational and fun, Disadvantages: None really
you group them into 3 sections, BlistsHillMuseums which comprises of BlistsHillVictorianTown, Coalport China Museum and Tar Tunnel (it is a fair walk but you can walk from one to the other); Ironbridge Museums which are The Iron Bridge, the Tollhouse, Museum of the Gorge, Jackfield Tile Museum and Broseley Pipeworks (again there is a fair walk to cover them all, but it can be done), you can get public transport into Ironbridge itself; finally the third group is Coalbrookdale Museums which is Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, Darby Houses and Enqinuity, these are all fairly close to each other and there are signs to show you where to walk. On occasions they do offer a free bus service to take you from one attraction to the other so you just park up and then hop on a bus to the next one, it may be worth your while asking when you purchase ...
