| Blists Hill |
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Information AboutBlists Hill |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BLISTS HILL VICTORIAN TOWN | |
| visitor attractions in shropshire | |
| telford and wrekin | |
| museums in england | |
| living museums | |
| open air museums | |
| industrial revolution | |
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Blists Hill is a former industrial complex located in the Madeley area of Telford , Shropshire , UK , which has been converted into an Open Air Museum that attempts to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of a local Victorian Shropshire town at the end of the 19th Century . The staff wear period costume and you can even exchange modern day currency at 'the bank' for Victorian coinage to spend on site in the recreated shops and pub. Staff also operate steam engines, pour iron in a foundry and muck out pigs. There is also a Victorian Chemists shop. It is one of the ten museums operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust . HISTORY In the 18th and 19th centuriues, Blists Hill was an industrial region consisting of a Brick and Tile works, Blast Furnace s and Mine works operated by the Madeley Wood Company . A short section of the Shropshire Canal ran from the site to the Hay Inclined Plane , which transported boats up and down the 207 ft high incline from Blists Hill to Coalport . OPEN AIR MUSEUM Blists Hill Victorian Town, originally called '''Blists Hill Open Air Museum''', was opened in )and buildings that simply represent a generic type (''e.g.'' the sweet shop). The New Inn public house originally stood between Green Lane and Hospital Street in Walsall and was demolished brick by brick in the early 1980s so that it could be transported to the Blists Hill museum and rebuilt exactly how it had stood in its original location. 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 Newsheet s being printed. The demonstrators 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. The first building visitor see in the museum is the bank (modelled on the still-standing Lloyds Bank in Broseley ), at which they can change modern coinage into token coinage that represents the predecimal Farthing s, Halfpennie s, Pennie s, and Threepenny Bits , at an exchange rate of 40 new pence to 1 old penny. They can then use the token coins to buy goods whilst visiting the museum. EXTERNAL LINKS
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