The Industrial Heritage Group

Leader:  Mike Stow - indhist@ashbyu3a.co.uk - phone 01530 469152

The Industrial Heritage Group is for members who have an interest in our industrial heritage of trains, cars, planes, bikes, early manufacturing etc. to visit museums, railways, factories and other places related to our industrial past. We occasionally take a quite broad view of what constitutes "Industrial Heritage" if it is of interest to us!

Travel arrangements vary depending on how far we have to travel, but generally we meet in Ashby to car-share.

Our trips are normally on Wednesdays unless otherwise stated.

All dates below are provisional until stated otherwise

Wednesday 23rd September. Blists Hill Victorian Town, Ironbridge

Kevin had done an excellent job of organising this trip and getting 17 of us to Blists Hill despite roadworks and other diversions and the National Trust making life difficult in that entrance was only by online booking but tickets couldn’t be bought more than a few days in advance. Even free tickets for NT members had to be booked in advance.

Nonetheless we got there ok and after a coffee break, set off to explore. Most of the shops and houses had costumed re-enactors in them to tell the story of their particular venue whilst the local bobby patrolled the streets keeping everyone in order. After all this dry weather we did have a couple of light showers but not enough to spoil the day.

Some ventured into the school room for a lesson, to find that the bobby had been transformed into the school teacher and later went to the pub for a singalong only to find that he was now the piano player! All very fascinating and interesting, however we were told by some of the re-enactors that NT, having recently taken over the Ironbridge Gorge Trust, have not yet allowed the many of the activities such as blacksmithing, iron casting, running of steam engines or buses to operate without risk assessments. And they cannot now serve draught beer in the pub! This is despite all these activities operating for many years before the takeover. Hopefully they will get it all sorted out in due course.

Previous trips