Blists Hill

Blists Hill Lloyds Bank

Blists Hill is an open-air museum, one of ten museums operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, built on a former industrial complex located in Madeley, in Shropshire. The museum attempts to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of a Victorian Shropshire town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

History of the site

The coal mine and Shropshire Canal

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Blists Hill was an industrial region consisting of a brick and tile works, blast furnaces and coal, iron and fire clay mines operated by the Madeley Wood Company. A short section of the Shropshire Canal ran across the site to the Hay Inclined Plane, which transported boats up and down the 207-foot tall incline from Blists Hill to Coalport.

Open-air museum

Introduction

Blists Hill Victorian Town, originally called Blists Hill Open Air Museum, was opened in 1973, and has been slowly growing ever since. The museum's buildings fall into one of three categories: buildings that were already part of the industrial site (for example the brickworks); buildings that simply represent a generic type (for example the sweet shop), some adaptively reusing existing premises on site or being replicas of those still standing elsewhere; and original buildings that have been relocated to the museum (as has The New Inn public house, which originally stood between Green Lane and Hospital Street in Walsall).

Each building is manned by one or more costumed demonstrators, who have been trained in the skills and history of the profession they re-enact. For example, in the printshop, visitors can watch posters and newssheets being printed. The demonstrators normally talk in the third person, referring to the Victorians as "they" or "them" (rather than in the first person "I" or "we" which some similar museums employ): the museum management believes that this allows greater scope for comparing modern techniques with those re-enacted at the museum. Staff may also be seen performing such diverse tasks as operating stationary steam engines, iron founding and mucking out pigs.

A Penny token as used in Blists Hill

The first building visitors see in the museum is the bank (modelled on the Lloyds Bank branch which still stands in Broseley), at which they can change modern coinage into token coinage that represents the predecimal farthings, halfpennies, pennies, threepenny bits and sixpences, at an exchange rate of 40 new pence to 1 old penny. They can then use the token coins as an alternative to modern currency for buying goods whilst visiting the museum (the gift shop at the museum entrance operates only in modern currency).

Town area

The High Street area of the Upper Town has been developed around a London and North Western Railway interchange siding with a plateway which is an original feature of the site. Shops erected on the site include a chemist (with fittings from Bournemouth), butcher (from Ironbridge), grocer (replica of a building from Oakengates), and printer (with equipment from Kington, Herefordshire). Small crafts include an iron foundry, a shoeing smith, bootmaker, locksmith, decorative plasterer (with equipment from Burton upon Trent), builder, and sawmill.

Premises in Quarry Bank include a tallow candle manufactory (from Madeley), a bakery (from Dawley), a physician’s surgery (in a Sutherland Estate cottage from Donnington), and a Board School (from Stirchley).

Recent new developments have included the addition of 'Canal Street', which was a new build closely modelled on extant and historic buildings in the Telford area. This area includes a new Fish and Chip Shop, Drapers shop and Post Office, as well as an enlarged Sweet Shop. A walkway is located at the end of Canal Street, which leads visitors to the ruins of the brick and tile works. Adjacent to the ruins, and on select days, an operational replica of a steam locomotive designed and built by Richard Trevithick in 1802 runs on a short segment of 3-ft narrow gauge track. The original locomotive was the world's first steam locomotive on rails and was commissioned by the Coalbrookdale Company, which was located nearby (however, no record exists that this locomotive was ever successfully run).

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Blists Hill Victorian Town)

Ironworks area

Blowing engine house and blast furnaces at Blists Hill

The original Madeley Wood Company blast furnaces produced pig iron from 1832 to 1911. Their remains have been conserved and a blowing engine from the Lilleshall Company’s Priorslee Ironworks installed in one of the houses. Nearby are displayed a pair of beam engines from the same location, alongside a wrought iron works using equipment from Thomas Walmsley's Atlas Forge in Bolton in an iron-framed building designed by John Rennie the Elder for Woolwich Dockyard.

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about G R Morton Ironworks)

Countryside area

The more remote parts of the site demonstrate natural recolonisation of an industrial landscape. Amongst buildings re-erected in this area are a corrugated iron tin tabernacle, (St Chad's Mission Church from Lodge Bank), a squatter cottage (from Dawley), and a toll house (designed by Telford for the Holyhead Road at Shelton).

New developments

In 2009 a £12 million programme of redevelopment was completed which included the previously discussed buildings on Canal Street, a new World Heritage Visitor Centre, a mine railway and an inclined lift.

The lift and mine railway have been subject to criticism on the grounds of authenticity, since they fall outside the former curatorial policy of maintaining the appearance of an industrial town in c.1900. The mine railway is intended to represent a 1920s clay mine, although the rolling stock is modern and the mine is formed by a concrete bunker. The inclined lift is entirely modern, and enables visitors with restricted mobility to access the lower part of the site. The project did not fund the restoration of the Scheduled Ancient Monuments and associated archaeological features on the site.

Filming location

Blists Hill has been used as a filming location on several occasions. In 1979, the children's television series Blue Peter included an item shot at the museum. The director of the piece subsequently chose it to be the principal filming location for the 1985 Doctor Who serial The Mark of the Rani.

• Feast of July (1995 film)
• An episode of Antiques Roadshow (2009).
• Victorian Pharmacy (2010), a historical documentary looking at life in the 19th Century.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Blists Hill)

• Location map: 52°37’44"N, 2°27’4"W
• Blists Hill Victorian Town
• Shropshire tourism information
• Archaeology in the Ironbridge Gorge

References

• Trinder, Barrie (1986). Blists Hill Open Air Museum: a guide to the museum and exhibits. Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. 
• Herbert, Tony (1986). The unnatural history of Blists Hill: a guide to the plants and wildlife of the museum site. Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. 
• West, Bob (1988). "The making of the English working past: a critical view of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum". in Lumley, Robert (ed.). The Museum Time-Machine: putting cultures on display. London: Routledge. pp. 36–62. ISBN 0-415-00651-1.