Other Explorations in the West Midlands

We stayed in Bromsgrove - to the south west of Birmingham, which gave us easy access to the M42 motorway and other attractions around the area.  On our way to Bromsgrove we visited the Forge Needle Museum in nearby Redditch.  The area was once important for making needles and  there were a lot of companies based in the area.  The museum is on the site of the last mill and is based in what is now a country park.

There are two buildings next to each other - this main one is now used for the displays of needles, pins and fishing flies (because of the same processes as needle production). There were elaborate displays of needles of various sizes and uses, from really tiny ones for cornea grafts to the largest one used for sewing mattresses.  A lot were is display frames like the ones below (and there were a lot of these) which company representatives would use to show to customers

And I really liked the displays of knitting and crochet needle gauges.  Although I didn't take any photos of them, there was a temporary display of Royal Enfield motorbikes, which were made in the Enfield area of the town.  The motorbikes are now made in India.

The next day we visited Gayden, home of Jaguar cars, Land Rovers and the British Motor Museum. so here are a few photos from there.  As we get older there are a lot of cars that we remember from childhood. Others are before then and there was even a life sized Lego Mini!

While I was at the Festival of Quilts David explored another couple of places.  A motor museum in Coventry city centre and also the Birmingham Bus Museum.

Before we left Bromsgrove and moved onto our next destination, Dudley, we visited the Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings.  This is a volunteer run museum open at weekends and is outdoors and they house local buildings that would have disappeared due to development.  Its also home to the national collection of telephone boxes, who knew there was such a thing.  They also had a small old telephone exchange, which a volunteer was explaining how that worked.  So a quirky but interesting place to visit.

Old Tudor chimney pots

A post mill 

There was knitting and crochet interest in the toll house.

The old tin hut chapel

Public phone signs
 

And a Police Phone Box and no, its not like the Tardis inside!

We moved onto a National Trust property, Hanbury Hall, house and walled garden and despite the cloudy weather it didn't rain! 

These small buildings at each corner of the wall had these lovely glass panels in (below)

The gardens were a bit sparse, due to the recent very hot, dry weather.

 

When in Dudley we stayed at a business park, which had nearby restaurants and cinema and came across this sculpture dedicated to James Whale, a film director from the area, who produced Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, amongst other films.

Our last stop before heading home was to visit another NT site, Wightwick (pronounced Wittick) Manor near Wolverhampton, which was the home Sir Geoffrey Mander (of Manders Brothers Paints) an industrialist, MP and art collector.  There is a collection of pre-Raphaelite art and the design of the house itself is very eclectic. A volunteer conducted an architectural tour around the outside of the house which was interesting.  I only took one photo (I think David kept taking pics!) of the outside 

And I took some of the collection in another building.  But it is worth a visit if you are in the area.

So that was our trip to the Midlands.  At the end of this month we are visiting North Yorkshire and will be staying in Knaresborough.  I'm looking forward to visit Skipton and Yarndale wool festival but will be seeing other places that we haven't yet explored.