We left Birmingham early this morning to travel the 3 hours to the Black Country Museum At Tipton Junction near Dudley. There are two canal lines to get there - we took “the old line”, travelling up the three locks at Smethwick.
The top lock at Smethwick.
We very soon found ourselves dallying with the M5. We followed it and weaved in and out of it for well over a mile.
The old and the new.
We arrived at the museum at 10:30 so had the major part of the day ahead of us. It’s a vast area which the museum covers, with buildings harking back to the industrial era being moved from their original places to the museum and rebuilt brick by brick.
There are streets and streets of houses, shops and industry – all open to walk round and talk to the guides.
Doug inside one of the many cottages.
A row of shops – there’s a queue for the fish and chip shop in the distance.
We had a great time watching all sorts of demonstrations and we went on a tour down a coal mine which was very good indeed. We couldn’t leave without doing the Dudley Tunnel trip which is well worth it ……….
……..and to round off our brilliant day we were given the chance to do some “legging” of the trip boat inside the tunnel – something James has always hankered to do.
It was surprisingly easy to do once we’d got the boat moving.
An instant expert!
We shall spend the night here before returning to Birmingham tomorrow.
Make sure have some Fish and Chips before you leave, they are great cooked how they used to cook them.
ReplyDeleteB J & P