Blists Hill Victorian Town facts for kids
Blists Hill Victorian Town is a special kind of museum called an open-air museum. It's built on an old industrial site in Madeley, part of Telford, Shropshire, England. This museum brings to life a Victorian town from the late 1800s and early 1900s. You can experience the sights, sounds, and even smells of that time!
Blists Hill was once a busy industrial area. It had places that made bricks and tiles, huge furnaces for iron, and mines for coal and iron. The museum first opened in 1973 and has grown a lot since then. Some buildings at the museum were already there, some are copies of old buildings, and others were moved from different places.
The museum has three main parts:
- A town area with Victorian shops like a bank, bakery, and post office.
- An industrial district where people worked in places like a blast furnace.
- A countryside district with buildings like a small cottage and a tin church.
Blists Hill has even been used for TV shows and movies, including Doctor Who and Blue Peter!
Contents
Exploring Blists Hill: A Victorian Adventure
Stepping Back in Time
Blists Hill Victorian Town lets you travel back in time. It first opened in 1973 as the Blists Hill Open Air Museum. The buildings you see here fit into three groups:
- Some buildings were already on this industrial site, like the old brickworks.
- Others are typical Victorian buildings, like the sweet shop. Some are copies, and some use existing old buildings.
- Many original buildings were carefully moved here from other towns, like The New Inn public house (a pub).
Meeting Victorian Characters
Inside each building, you'll find people dressed in Victorian clothes. They are experts in the skills and history of the jobs they act out. For example, in the print shop, you can watch them print posters and newspapers. These demonstrators will tell you about Victorian life. They often talk about "them" (the Victorians) instead of "us" to help you compare their world to ours. You might also see them working with steam engines or looking after pigs!
When you first arrive, you can visit the bank. It looks like an old Lloyds Bank branch. Here, you can swap your modern money for special token coins. These tokens look like old British coins such as farthings, halfpennies, pennies, and sixpences. You can use these tokens to buy things in the museum's shops. (But remember, the gift shop at the entrance only takes modern money!)
The Bustling Town Area
The High Street in the Upper Town is built around an old railway siding. You'll find many interesting shops here:
- A chemist (pharmacy) with old medicine bottles.
- A butcher shop.
- A grocer (food shop).
- A printer with old printing machines.
You can also see small craft workshops like an iron foundry, a blacksmith who shoes horses, a bootmaker, and a locksmith. There's also a decorative plasterer and a sawmill.
In another part, Quarry Bank, you can find a place that makes tallow candles. There's also a bakery, a doctor's office, and a Victorian school.
Recently, a new area called 'Canal Street' was built. It looks just like old streets in the Telford area. Here you'll find a fish and chip shop, a fabric shop, and a post office. There's also a bigger sweet shop! A path from Canal Street leads to the old brick and tile works ruins. Sometimes, you can even see a working copy of a steam train designed by Richard Trevithick in 1802. It runs on a short, narrow track. This original train was the world's first steam locomotive on rails!
The Industrial Ironworks
The old Madeley Wood Company used to make pig iron here from 1832 to 1911. You can still see the remains of their huge blast furnaces. A large machine called a blowing engine has been moved here and put into one of the old furnace buildings. Nearby, you can see two huge beam engines. There's also a workshop where wrought iron was made, using old equipment.
Peaceful Countryside Area
The quieter parts of Blists Hill show how nature takes over old industrial land. Here, you can see buildings that were moved to the museum:
- A church made of corrugated iron (called a "tin tabernacle").
- A small squatter cottage, which was a simple home built by people who didn't own the land.
- A toll house designed by Thomas Telford. This was where people paid money to use a road.
New Additions to the Museum
In 2009, some big changes were made to Blists Hill. These included the new buildings on Canal Street. There's also a new visitor center and a mine railway that looks like a 1920s clay mine. A special inclined lift helps visitors with wheelchairs or pushchairs get to the lower parts of the site easily.
The Hay Inclined Plane: A Canal Wonder
The Hay Inclined Plane is a fascinating part of the Shropshire Canal. It's like a giant ramp that helped boats travel up and down a 207 ft (63 m) tall hill! This amazing machine worked from 1792 to 1894.
Here's how it worked:
- Special box-shaped boats, about 20 feet long, were used.
- These boats traveled on two railway tracks.
- An empty boat would be loaded into the river at the bottom.
- A full boat would be loaded into the canal at the top.
- A rope connected the two boats.
- The heavy, loaded boat would roll down to the river, and its weight would pull the empty boat up to the canal!
- At the bottom, the tracks went underwater, letting the boats float freely.
You can visit the Hay Inclined Plane as part of your trip to Blists Hill Victorian Town.
Blists Hill on Screen
Blists Hill has been a popular spot for filming!
- In 1979, the children's TV show Blue Peter filmed a segment here.
- The TV show Doctor Who used Blists Hill as a main location for an episode called The Mark of the Rani in 1985.
- The 1995 film Feast of July was also shot at Blists Hill.
- An episode of Antiques Roadshow was filmed here in 2009.
- In 2010, a documentary called Victorian Pharmacy used Blists Hill to show what an everyday pharmacy looked like in the 1800s.
See also
- Beamish Museum
- Living museum
