The Black Country Living Museum, formerly known as the Black Country Museum and one of many Midland museums, has in its short history been recognised and accepted as one of the West Midlands number one UK attractions for local heritage, culture and history, plus a recommendation by Activ Birmingham as an ideal visitor or tourist day out in England. The idea of the museum was first muted in the early 1970's by a group of Black Country born and bred enthusiasts from all walks of life. The first build was commenced in 1975 and it opened to the public in 1978.

The museum, in the heart of England, is held in trust for the benefit of the general public and contains notable buildings from locations from around  the four Black Country Boroughs of Dudley, Walsall, Sandwell and Wolverhampton, most of which were accurately marked, taken apart brick by brick, and then loaded and transported to the museum site to be rebuilt.

Ticket prices - Adults £13.60, Seniors 60 plus £11.00, Children 5-16 £7.10 under 5's free. Family tickets - 2 Adults & 3 young children £35.80 and 1 Adult & 1 child £18.50. Discount prices available online and also for groups of 10 or more.

Guide Books - £2.90 & Car parking  - £2.00

Opening Times:                                                                                                                                                                                                1st March to 31st October 2011 - Daily 10.00am to 5.00pm                                                                                                            November 2011 to February 2012 - Daily 10.00am to 4.00pm

The Museum does not open on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

The Museum will also be closed during early January.         

The main entrance to the museum, which contains a conventional exhibition centre displaying artefacts made in the Black Country, is the frontage of an old swimming baths. The exhibition also contains examples of machinery, iron products and vehicles, which were a major part of the industrialised Black Country. It also contains articles of lead crystal glass from world renown but now defunct glass makers of Stourbridge, as well as glass tableware items produced by Joseph Chance glass works in the Smethwick and Oldbury area.

The BCLM is close to where the practice of smelting iron with coal instead of wood was first carried out by Thomas Dudley. The iron was found to be pure enough for industrial purposes and the surrounding area became famous for the manufacture of nails, all sizes of chain and also the anchor for the ill fated Titanic. 

Maps of the area and a museum map are readily available within the museum and its displays.

The actual museum site encompasses some 26 acres of land and stands in Tipton Road, Dudley, close to the well known Dudley Zoo. The land was initially home to a railway goods yard, disused coal pits and lime kilns which now form a small part of the exhibits.  The coal mining display includes colliery surface buildings, underground workings and a replica of a Newcomen engine which was used in the mining industry for pumping excess water from below ground operations.

The site contains a small village which is home to houses, a menswear shop, a sweet shop with all its bottles of sweets, a pub selling mild and bitter, larer was not drunk in those days and a fish and chip selling tasty fish and chips fried in lard. These buildings form the base for local historians to portray life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The village also contains a school, with desks and inkwells, giving an indication of lessons and life at school in the early 20th century plus also a Methodist Chapel. The majority of Black Country residents were practising Methodists in those Days. 

There is also a building housing a builder's merchant displaying toilets, fireplaces and a range of building supplies. A motor cycle shop displaying six motor bikes and a tobacco shop once owned by the well known Alfred Preedy and Sons retail and wholesale tobacconists. There is also a radio shop; televisions had not been invented, displaying second hand and also new radios for sale. There is a Workers Institute building, moved from nearby Cradley Heath and in its day was a centre for trade union activists, social gatherings and educational meetings.

The shopkeepers and museum staff can be seen dressed in costumes of the period.

A short canal arm runs between the village and school which provides an in-sight into the important role of canals in the history of the Black Country.

The sight also provides short canal boat trips into the limestone caverns and with no towpaths being available for horse drawn towing use of the boat, passengers can attempt to walk it through the tunnel by lying on their sides on the boat and using a sideways walking action to walk the boat by using the tunnel sides.

The site also contains a traditional fun fair of days gone by, with a speedway ride and helter skelter.

There are also a number of trams, trolley buses and old Midland Red buses on view, some of which are in operation following expensive restoration.

The museum has grown in size over the years with the addition of number of new and interesting buildings and has also assumed responsibility for collection items from Dudley Museum and the building and collections of the Lock Museum, Willenhall, in 2003.

Another local museum worthy of a visit is the air museum at RAF Cosford.