Shropshire Magazine

As the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust turns 40, Shirley Tart takes a Christmas trip to Blists Hill Victorian Town, the most seasonal – and most visited – of its 10 museums

1880s Christmas at Blists Hill

Of all the Gorge museums, this is the one you do not simply visit – you experience it. And Christmas time sees Blists Hill come into its own. The Victorian Christmas card comes to life, part of both the lavish and the poverty-stricken Christmas Past of Dickensian times.

On the edge of a last-century new town with modern facilities and innovations, Blists Hill Victorian Town is a period gem.

Opened 34 years ago as simply an ‘open air museum,’ every effort has been made to keep it as authentic as possible, caught in a time warp which fascinates thousands every year, not only with its peep at Christmas of long ago but also with events and settings which paint a vivid picture of Victorian life of the late 1880s.

Indeed, the open-air attraction, sprawling behind the Madeley-to-Coalport road, is easily the biggest tourist trap of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust’s spectacular collection. More than that, it is a footprint of an age gone by, a corner of our sceptred isle forever in the past but fascinating this generation – and set to do the same for those yet to come.

In its authentic wooded setting, the open-air museum takes visitors beyond 21st-century car parking, through a gate to the past, across the old railway line and back down the ages. Those of us who knew the area before most of today’s attractions were in place have watched with fascination as this incredible re-creation unfolded. Not just by new buildings made to look old, either, but in many cases by moving part of Shropshire’s heritage, brick by brick, plank by plank, across the county and rebuilding it at Blists Hill.

And so the Forest Glen, once an off-beat entertainment venue with its amazing Coalport collection and hunting relics, was moved from the foot of the Wrekin, while the toll house made its way from the old A5 and building after building arrived here over the years to painstakingly rise again.

Mince pies continue to be a traditional staple of the festive season

Then there’s the squatter’s cottage, which amazes with its picture of togetherness (big family, minimum space) – you can easily be transported to those far-less-comfortable days of long ago. The cottage at Blists Hill was originally built on Burrows Bank at Lightmoor in 1820 and transferred the few miles across east Shropshire to be rebuilt at the museum. Now, careful renovation work has preserved it as an authentic homestead of the day.

When Blists Hill opened to the public as a museum in 1973, the idea of recreating a fully-fledged Victorian community wasn’t really planned. But the project evolved to make that not just a possibility but an obvious next move.

When the overgrown site was first investigated, it was home to a few relics of the industrial activity which had so marked this area out as amazing. And the ghosts of ages past were surely not far away! There were remains of 19th-century blast furnaces and substantial evidence of massive brick- and tileworks which, by the end of that century, would have spread right across the top of what is now the Blists Hill site.

There was a desolate stretch of the original Shropshire Canal (which was to become the Shropshire Union) but it added to the potential authenticity of the historic recreation which was to come as this area grew, developed and lived again. Suddenly, the future began to unfold.

A canal warehouse from Wappenshall on the Newport branch of the Shropshire Union Canal was converted to the carpenter’s workshop. And the perfect Victorian school from old Stirchley village became Blists Hill’s educational hub.

Buildings already part of the industrial site, like the brickworks, were joined by those representative of the day; the sweet shop for example, and of course, those original buildings moved to the museum from Shropshire and beyond. The New Inn public house came from Walsall.

A special building was created to hold a collection of printing equipment from Kington in Herefordshire. And as the museum began to grow, so did the concept of a Victorian township. One of the most spectacular and historic remainders of the industrial heyday was the Hay inclined plane.

Aerial view of Blists Hill Victorian Town

It sat at the far end of the site, a shadow of the vital role it once played, linking the canal at Blists Hill to Coalport, and from there to that great highway of its day for moving materials one way and goods the other, the River Severn itself.

Today, from a snapshot of what life was like for the Victorian housewife in her cottage or the doctor’s family in the bigger house, fascination stalks every visit to the museum. At its beginnings, willing volunteers were amazing in their commitment to rebuilding, repairing and re-creating a rich slice of 19th-century history in an area which had been home to the real thing.

And today townsfolk in Victorian dress who love life in the past, mingle easily with visitors in denims and trainers.

They slot perfectly into place running the town’s facilities: the bank which could be straight from A Christmas Carol; the grocer’s shop; and the pharmacy, where the sight of evil-looking dentistry equipment still makes you flinch.

This is the time of year when the candlemaker is in great demand and old printing methods – many of which have changed only in the last half century – are absorbing for both grown-ups and children. Catch the baker (usually join the queue) when a batch is just out of the ovens, and you’ll have a teatime to remember. Drop into the New Inn for a warming tincture, admire appealing rare-breed pigs who love visitors, pop into the schoolhouse where discipline ruled and the cane wasn’t banned.

And for those who want to further explore the industrial history of the town, there is a 19th-century steam-operated pithead, you can see red-hot molten iron being poured in the foundry, and the canal, such a vital part of this story, has been extended and cleaned-up.

Demonstrations at Blists Hill remain a favourite with visitors of all ages

A new opportunity this year offers a ‘Blacksmith Experience’ on selected days until next March. A museum? It’s a 19th-century home from home!

For a little fun the traditional fairground is a magnet,with its carousel and swingboats, while a horse-and-cart ride around the town adds to its attractions, redolent of gentler days, even though times were undoubtedly hard.

I hosted a special party there this year with hog roast and fairground in action, and even the most sophisticated friends and global travellers just loved it. Go back in time for a real treat, we say!

Right now, the flagship visitor attraction in the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge is getting a major transformation thanks to a £10 million grant package from Advantage West Midlands and the European Regional Development Fund.

New developments at the award-winning museum will include an up-to-date entrance area and visitor centre, new park-and-ride services, a replica narrow-gauge railway, and new shops and workshops. As work progresses visitors may get a bonus, with a chance to see a bit more ‘behind the scenes’ as it were.

And so, life goes on in this special town which captures such a rich slice of our unique heritage.