 |
 |
|||
|
||||
 A
friendly welcome awaits you at one of Britain's best open air
museums. Discover a fascinating and different world where an
old-fashioned village has been recreated by the canal as a
living tribute to the skills and enterprise of the people of the
Black Country, once the Industrial Heart of Britain.You can wander around shops and houses, ride on a tramcar or fairground swingboat or just soak up the atmosphere. The exhibits reflect the industrial heritage of the area, an ironworks with rolling mill, a coal mine with colliery engine and a Newcomen Engine (a replica of the world's first steam engine), all in action on specific dates. The village is surrounded on three sides by canal, the Dudley Tunnel Branch of the Birmingham Canal system and two arms, one to old lime kilns and the other to a fully functioning boatdock. The boatdock is typical of the many built on the Black Country canals. Three boats can be drawn out of the water sideways and it is fully equipped to repair and build working narrowboats. Many of the dock buildings have been built from redundant boats. |
Dudley
Tunnel is 3154 yards long and connects to an unique
network of caverns and canal branches which served the limestone
mines beneath Castle Hill, preserved almost without change for
two hundred years. You can take a trip through some of the
network on an electrically powered trip boat from the museum.
Only electrically propelled boats are allowed in the tunnel due
to lack of ventilation, boats used to have to be legged through,
pushed by the crew lying on their backs on the boat and walking
along the tunnel walls. Traditional narrowboats are moored around the village and the steam powered narrowboat President can sometimes be seen, although it is often out on its regular trips around the English canal system. You can often see horse drawn joey boats, typical of the craft that were used on the Birmingham system for nearly two hundred years. (Photographs and information courtesy of Black Country Living Museum) |
 |
 |
||
|
 |
|
|
