The Black Country Museum.

Tuesday 2nd July, 2013 at the Black Country Museum, Dudley.
Well, what can we say? It was absolutely fantastic! We spent the whole day there; we were the first visitors in and the last to leave. It's a superb outdoor museum built around the site of a large limekiln that used to be fed by canal. Almost all the buildings, which were local, have been painstakingly taken apart elsewhere, moved to the site and reconstructed there.

It is a whole town, with examples of houses from tiny "back to backs", basic "one up one down" built back to back, "through" houses - getting posher now, they are "two up two down", right up to foremens' houses with a parlour, dining room, living room, kitchen and several bedrooms.

Each house is furnished in the style of a time appropriate to when it was built and most houses have a member of staff (in costume) in them who knows about the house and its history - and even who lived in it before it was moved.

There are shops, all with contemporary fittings and goods, again with "shopkeepers" in them to explain everything. The photo below is of a school party of Asian children loving every moment of the visit to the ironmongers'!

We went down the mine, rode on the tram and had lunch in the "Workers' Institute".

We visited the canal basin and peered into a traditional narrowboat back cabin, which could have been home to a family of four or more.

We watched brass casting and chain making demonstrations, walked up to the top of the lime kilns and peered down - and generally were tourists for the day. Magic!

It was so nice to see the large number of school children visiting and how they were fascinated by what they were seeing.
The Black Country (so called because of the black smoke belching from countless factory chimneys, furnaces, forges and kilns) had all the natural resources such as coal and limestone for such industries and became the first industrial landscape anywhere in the world in the eighteenth century.  Therefore, it is justly proud of its heritage and it is wonderful to see the buildings and skills being preserved like this. 
In the evening, as we were sitting with a glass of wine each and re-living the day, another boat moored up next to us and indicated that a glass of wine seemed an excellent idea. "Well" we said, "come and join us" - and a little later, rather to our delight, they did!  Ray, Ever, Vicky and Steve were travelling on Ray's boat "Dragonfly".

Ray and Steve were brothers and had been boating on and off since 1974 so we had a very enjoyable chat over a glass of wine. When the glasses were empty, we went across to their boat to continue the discussion and so didn't get to bed until nearly midnight!
What a brilliant day!!
Today: We didn't move on MM but only ran the engine to charge the batteries.