Category: West Midlands

Black Country Living Museum, Dudley – Gospel Car 11, Ebenezer, and Providence Chapel

Black Country Museum on Friday 25 September. Last time we went I remember Gareth being taken for a walk on the cakewalk at the fairground – sadly the fairground has gone at the moment – but the rest was wonderful. They have a superb guidebook too, which means I need to spend another day reading that. They give a simple map which shows the accessible routes, so we had a good explore. We started with the Newcomen Engine, this is a replica but the original was only about a mile away. It’s dated to about 1712, and is currently...

Birmingham – Hall of Memory

On Saturday 19 October I was allowed an escape day. I started with my flu jab, then caught the train from Duffield to Derby and on (on a packed Cross Country train) to Birmingham. I eventually managed to escape from New Street (how could they make such a mess of a station rebuild?) and walked to the Library of Birmingham. Why does Birmingham have a stunning library when in Derby they closed a beautiful Victorian library and handed everything else over to community control? The Library is hosting an exhibition called “Watt in the World, the life and legacy...

Coventry Cathedral – a personal pause

My beautiful wife Julie is a Coventry girl, and Monday 3 December 2018 was our 35th wedding anniversary. We drove to Coventry, parked at the west end of the old cathedral and then went in to the new one. We needed a verger to take us down from the nave floor to the basement, and direct us through to the café. After a snack we went back upstairs, and had an explore – the photos were taken on my phone. We also purchased lots of guidebooks to write a full blog next time we come. The Cathedral was destroyed in...