We recently celebrated Bonfire Night, when we commemorate the failure of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plotters to blow up King James and the Houses of Parliament in 1605. I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story and many of you will be aware of the local connection (if you read our earlier …
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Turning spells and bad luck away.
How do we protect our homes today? We have locks, alarms, cameras, lights, smoke detectors etc to protect our homes against fire and thieves. But what about in the 1600s? What were the residents of Oak House, Bromwich Hall, and Haden Old Hall concerned with protecting their homes against? Of course they feared thieves and …
Blackwashing History
By its very nature the Roman Empire was a multicultural place. At its height its territory stretched from north-west Europe, to North Africa and into the Near East and after 43 CE (Christian Era) this began to include Britain. People from a wide variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds came under Roman rule. People also …
Diversity in the 1500s
The story of black people in Britain is often seen from two perspectives – slavery and the British slave trade and the communities which made Britain their home from the 1950s onwards making the UK and Sandwell the diverse, colourful exciting place it is today. However, were there people from across the world living in, …
The Colossus of Roads
Here in Sandwell we particularly remember Thomas Telford as a great canal and bridge builder. His building of the new main line canal, described by a contemporary as a work of ‘stupendous magnificence’, between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in the 1820s is recognised as an engineering feat that had no parallel at the time. Telford …
Sandwell Museums collection in 10 objects
Sandwell Museums looks after around 20,000 objects and 6 historic buildings, including a medieval manor house, 17th century yeoman farmer’s house, a canal pumping station…well see for yourself https://www.discoversandwell.co.uk/museums-arts/ Sandwell itself only came into being in the early 1970s, before that, the different towns of the borough had their own councils and museums, which now …
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Change, Conservation and Collections
Hello Museum People! It’s me again, your friendly neighbourhood Collections Officer, inviting you back into the world of pests and paperwork. This blog, unlike the last, will address how the collection is constantly changing and being re-interpreted, keeping myself and the staff at Sandwell Museums Service on our toes. Re-interpreting what we have Sandwell Museums …
Shoes and socks off we’re going for a paddle!
Holidays from Haden Hill House We are almost at the end of summer and autumn is just around the corner (yay!). Due to Covid 19 many people have chosen to take a break in the UK this year, so you might have recently taken a trip to the British seaside. So I thought it would …
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Fights and Fire Engines
The Story of Isaac Perrins I think most of us are well acquainted with the story of the Tipton Slasher, William Perry, Heavyweight Boxing Champion of Great Britain in the 1850s, and commemorated by a statue in Tipton’s Coronation Gardens. So I’m not going to tell it again. Instead, how about the story of another …
Sandwell Men and the Death Railway.
In commemoration of VJ Day. The recent appearance in the mainstream media of a story about David Lean’s 1957 movie, the bridge on the River Kwai, should have reminded us that Saturday is VJ, or Victory over Japan, day (August 15, 1945, in Japan, and because of time zone differences, August 14, 1945 in Britain). …
