Black Country Living Museum Black Country Living Museum The Black Country Living Museum (formerly The Black Country Museum) is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It is located in the centre of the Black Country, 10 miles west of Birmingham. The museum occupies of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, disused lime kilns, canal arm and former coal pits. The museum opened to the public in 1978, and has since added over 50 shops, houses and other industrial buildings from around the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and the City of
The Old Town with museum staff working in the roles of town figures i.e. merchant, blacksmith etc. adding to the illusion of a "living" town. In 1914 the Old Town was first opened to the public under the name "The Old Mayor's House". Apart from the renaissance-styled Mayor's House, there were a small garden pavilion and another large renaissance-styled house, all originally from the city of Aarhus. Over the course of the following half century the museum was slowly expanded as more buildings and collections from several parts of the country were donated or acquired. The historic Mayor's House of Aarhus was no