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Students experience 19th Century life at Black Country Living Museum
Posted on: 14/07/2025During July, members of Year 7 had the opportunity to travel back almost two hundred years in time to see the Industrial Revolution and life in the nineteenth century for themselves. Their visit to the Black Country Living Museum allowed them to build upon their recent work studying both the origins of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and also the extent to which the nineteenth century was an ‘age of progress’.
At the museum, students were able to see a range of period buildings and interact with various costumed re-enactors who explained their daily past lives, be that as miners, shop owners, chemists, blacksmiths or more. Set up almost 50 years ago, the site is made up of three main streets, covering the 1960s, 1930s and the 1800s (our focus). Virtually all the buildings are originals, with the museum buying them and then arranging for their careful deconstruction, transport to and reconstruction on the museum site. As a result, the Black Country Living Museum has successfully kept alive what life would have been like in Dudley during those time periods.
Year 7 were very enthusiastic in their response to the visit. Whether it was appreciating the dark, claustrophobic nature of mining (complete with realistic rock falls), enjoying some very non-digital entertainment in the form of Victorian street games, or wondering whether they would have enjoyed family life aboard a working canal barge, Year 7 thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In fact many of them left, already talking about how to persuade their families to make a return visit!