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On 16th May 2024, 30 members visited Stourbridge Glass Museum and the Black Country Living Museum.
Arriving at the Glass Museum, we were given a warm welcome and provided with refreshments. In the small studio was a glass artist who was decorating a beautiful vase. She explained the process and answered all our questions.
We were told that many local people donated or bequeathed vintage glass items to be sold in the shop aid of the Museum funds.
We were next taken to the “hot workshop” where a glass blower was making a commission piece, an elaborate vase. Stourbridge became the centre of English glass production after the Huguenots found the region had all the raw materials for the making the clay pots to store the molten glass.
The Museum displays exhibited items from Roman times through to beautiful wine glasses of 1600, extravagant Victorian colourful pieces and recent contemporary work.
A short drive took us to the Industrial settlement recreated as the Black Country Living Museum. A wonderful trip down memory lane, including a ride on a red double decker, to see simple terraced houses of 1800 with ten foot square living rooms, often housing families of 6! There were pubs, fish and chips shop, The Worker’s Institute cafe and an array of nostalgic shops which many of us remembered from our youth in the 1960’s. There were even opportunities to sit in on a school lesson or to attend a mother and baby clinic set in early 1960. The site is built around the Dudley Canal which was used for filming the canal scenes for Peaky Blinders.
It was such an enjoyable day with so many nostalgic memories of bygone years.
Contributions from Dawn Holland & Andrew Williams
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