A Day At Blists Hill Victorian Town

We decided to treat the kids to a day out this Bank Holiday weekend that we knew both my wife and I would enjoy! We'd both been to Blists Hill museum in the past, long before we had kids, when my wife was checking it out for a school visit.

The sun was shining and we hoped we'd be in for a good day.


Firstly I'd like to say it's not a cheap day out. A family ticket is around £70 but for that you get to come back as many times as you want within that year, you also gain access to 10 attractions based around Ironbridge that you can access at any time. If you keep your ticket and there's an attraction you haven't visited within that year you can still go to each one once - which I thought was great because it's fair distance from us. I was still a bit annoyed at having to pay £3 to park as well after the big ticket prices though, but this is a pretty minor gripe really.

With their pocket money!

Being a sunny Bank Holiday we knew it would be busy, but the museum is on such a big site you never felt that it was. We could still go into empty shops and attractions and could easily talk with the reinactors (and ask them thousand of questions like I did).



Our youngest did make the first hour or so particularly hard as he decided he didn't know what he wanted. In the push chair he wanted carrying, carrying he wanted to walk and if he walked he just cried on the ground. I  guess being a two year old is hard with all these decisions but we felt quite sheepish as he screamed, and I mean SCREAMED, the place down. Goodness knows what anyone thought!

Carbolic soap - I brought some to try and use for my hair - I'll let you know how I get on!

Luckily once we'd eaten lunch he cheered up and we could wonder round all the attractions. I love how big the place is, some of the buildings had been brought brick by brick. The girls loved learning about how people lived in those times, seeing things like the wash house and also indulging my love of outhouses because they were everywhere!

Laundry room

I love a good outhouse - convincing the kids not to use it was hard...

The shops on the main street are great, we changed our money into "old money" in the bank and lett eh children have an allowance. The general store is like an Aldins cave, there's a chemists, bike shop and many more. My eldest daughters favourite was the fabric shop where she spent her pocket money on two bits of fabric to make things out of later (grandma will be so proud!). The younger two both brought a wooden toy, I was impressed that most stuff was really reasonably priced and they weren't trying to rip off their captive audience!

Another great outhouse!

They loved seeing the school house as well. Both girls are obsessed with school at the moment! My wife and I loved the "hovel" as we're fairly sure its were we would have lived in the past as neither of us came from money. I still think we would have been happy in those conditions though!

The May pole was out and being used by the fair and with the sun shining the whole palce looked truly gorgeous with games to play outside.

Games left out to play with - a nice touch

We were all completely drained by the end, all three children slept on the hour and a half journey home! We all enjoyed a really fun day out and I've no doubt that we'll be heading back up there this year to take advantage of our tickets a little bit more!

Dipping candles! 

All aboard!