Black country living museum

This was my third visit here. I love history, especially British history, and visiting places like this is like taking a step into the past. This is in Dudley and is like a little village around industry dating back to the early 1900s. The houses are very small, some are back to back houses, and very basic compared to our standards today. Back then the women, including wives with children went to work making chains - they wouldn't be allowed to do that today with all the health and safety regulations that are around to protect us. Women, back then, earned enough to live week to week and depending on making chains to survive. Their husbands may have been off to war or down in the coal mines. There is a canal here with some working barges on. These would have transported the coal up and down the country - before the age of the M1, M4 or M5 motorways. If you look carefully here you will notice some sunken barges. I don't know why they have been left like that, but still quite fascinating. There is an old Victorian fair here - very very small, with a helter skelter and a merry go round. When I visited in the past they had swing boats too but they weren't here when I visited this time (it may be too early in the season and we have just had a whole ton of snow over the UK which is still in the process of melting away). There is a mine shaft that you can go down, if you are brave enough (I wasn;t), and some old transport that you can ride around on such as old buses and trams. They usually run every 15 mins or so. There are a few places dotted around where you can grab a bite to eat - there is an authentic old fish and chip shop, an old sweet shop, cake shop, restaurant and a little cafe beside the gift shop. The people are very friendly and helpful - most dress up in old fashioned costumes and are very knowledgeable about the museum and how people used to live. Other things to see here are the old fashioned cinema which shows an old silent movie, the druggist or pharmacist shop, iron mongers, pub, school, workers institute and lots more. Definitely worth a visit and I am sure that kids would find it fascinating. Here's a slide show of the pictures I took whilst I was there: