At the heart of a £13m project to renew the Blists Hill Victorian Town
museum in the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage site is a £7.5m visitor entrance and orientation centre.
The building has been designed with reference to the great industrial ironworks that once stood on the site and takes visitors through two exhibitions and the interior of an iconic blast furnace tower. Visitors step into an immersive audio-visual experience that is designed to prepare them for a voyage back in time when Blists Hill was alive with heavy industry – coal and clay mines, blast furnaces and forges, brick and tile factories and a canal and tub-boat lift carrying goods up and down from the River Severn below. The exhibition draws on the Ironbridge Gorge Museum’s huge archive of original photographs, paintings and drawings as well as oral history of the industries and the people who worked in them.
Powerful audio-visual effects recreate the images, sounds and drama of blast
mining, smelting and hot iron working – as well as the intense activity of a busy
industrial town when Queen Victoria was on the throne.
On leaving the Victorian Town and its many working exhibits, visitors exit through a second exhibition which puts Blists Hill in the context of the industrial revolution that has its roots in the Ironbridge Gorge and is the reason for its World Heritage Site status. The area’s history is projected as animated sequences onto a large 3D map of the Ironbridge Gorge. This follows the story of industry from the development of the mineral riches through to the entrepreneurial achievements of the industrial pioneers at Coalbrookdale, Coalport, Jackfeld and Ironbridge.
Interactive screens beside the main projection permit visitors to explore the many museums of the Gorge and their nationally important collections of ironwork, machines, fine china and decorative tiles.