Blists Hill Victorian Town, Shropshire

Have you heard of Blists Hill town? Well, you have to have a good map, because it is not a real town. It is Victorian town borrowed from the past and presented to us now. To enjoy and learn. Blists Hill is a museum set in over 50 acres of land where iron was once smelted, coal and clay were mined and where bricks and roofing tiles were made. The remains of those industries can still be found on site, but in the same landscape a small industrial town has been created.

Much pleasure can be had by wandering around the site, looking in the buildings, listening to the customed demonstrators and getting involved with the various activities. Like any town anywhere in the UK Blists Hill would have been shaped by its geography, how it communicated with its neighbours and the rest of the country and most importantly, what type of work was available for its residents.

It is an old market town with handsome buildings. There is no monumental town hall; no real town centre. There is only one really old building, a timber-framed structure now used as an estate office for the Earl of Craven. The main town is comparatively new; grown up, ad hoc, from the end of the 18th century around a few coal and clay pits and a canal. Most of the three or four thousand residents earn their living through hard, manual work, in the mines or local brick and tile works, in the foundry or at the ironworks. Some of the lucky ones work in the small shops in the town. Blists Hill is a working class town where everyone has to work physically hard for almost all their adult lives.

And when you visit Blists Hill, you will notice that everyone is at work. No time for idling during the day or during the night; the men are involved with continuous industrial processes that take no account of the human body clock. Men, women and many children work long hours. They have to because there is always the fear of being laid off if business is slack or of becoming unable to work through injury. Only the very largest firms provide medical treatment for accidents at work. There is no national health service and no state unemployment benefit; no worker's unions to support working people.

Traditionally, mining and the iron trades have employed the most people who lived in the townof Blists Hill. Close to the canal that runs through the settlement there is a small mine that has been working since the 1770s. Over the years it has brought up coal, ironstone and clay, but it now supplies mainly clay to one of the nearby brick and tile works.

Ironstone is a reminder of the importance of the iron trades to this part of the country - Shropshire has gained a national reputation for its iron work. The three Blists Hill blast furnaces were 'blown out' recently and a local fortune teller predicts they will not work again after 1912. We will have to wait and see! Opposite those blast furnaces, G. R. Morton's ironworks is still in the business making wrought iron.

Next to the Morton's is a small blacksmith's shop that uses wrought iron as its raw material. Every town needs a blacksmith, but Blists Hill also has an important foundry that concentrates on making cast iron, and that's why there is also Corbett's Foundry, where liquid iron is poured into the sand moulds to make various objects used in industry and households.

Better jobs in the clay industry can be had almost within sight of Blists Hill, just south of the river, with the firms of Craven Dunhill and Maw & Co. Who produce decorative floor and wall tiles for buildings all over the world. These firms, as well as the nearby Coalport China Works, employ a lot of skilled labour including young women. This makes a welcome alternative for girls who might otherwise have to go into service in the neighbouring large houses before marriage, or work long hours in some of the larger local shops, such as McClures Drapers and Outfitters shop, Annie Pritchard's confectionery shop, A. F. Blakemore & Son's grocer shop in the High Street or, even, a candle shop.

One may ask yourself how Blists Hill, with all this works and shops, is not a real town? Well, it is a re-built one. The creation of Blists Hill Victorian Town started back in 1967. At the same time, Britain was changing rapidly. Old buildings all over the country were being knocked down, tower blocks were going up, and heavy industry was in decline. Traditional crafts were disappearing and there was a real sense that the country was losing its industrial heritage. In the same time a new town - Telford - was being laid out on the exhausted industrial landscape of the East Shropshire Coalfield, and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust was created. Its aim was to preserve artefacts and significant industrial sites in what is now the Ironbridge World Heritage Site. Social history objects, Coalport China, decorative tiles and many more historic items were collected for display in a number of planned new museums. But something more than a museum was the intention for Blists Hill where a derelict of 50 acres site had been acquired.

Bit by bit a historic artefacts, pieces of Victorian life, were collecting to make a new open-air museum  an extraordinary place to be. Buildings due for demolition were rescued and reconstructed on site by museum craftsmen. Probably the best examples of their brick by brick work are the Candle Factory and Stirchley school. One of the most challenging projects was the dismantling and re-erection of a local timber-framed building that now houses the Estate Office.

If the whole buildings could not be saved, original fittings such as windows, doors and complete interiors were collected and incorporated into new structures; the New Inn, the Chemist's Shop/Farmacy and the Locksmith's are all examples of this approach. In the case of Lloyd's Bank, a faithful replica of the existing bank at Broseley was created. Some of the newest additions to the site are six new 'old' buildings, new visitor centre, mine railway and experience and inclined lift were completed in 2009.

The experience of Blists Hill Victorian town is something that is unique. Every single detail is carefully brought in life and the great care was taken to make the whole street look as thought it was a snap-shot from the past brought back to life. As many old fittings as possible were used from the Museum's collections and paint colours were chosen from a 1901 trade catalogue that actually included a colour chart that was in colour!

The museum staff is put into Victorian costume, carefully replicated from the original patterns. From them you may learn a lot about Victorian life and specific trade. The chemist shop assistant will tell you all you want to know about old cures and how Victorians used to make tablets; a photographer will make a lovely 'old style' photo of you dressed in period costume; you can buy fresh rock cake in bakery or even have a short lesson in the school.