Black Country Living Museum Wolverhampton (collectively known as the Black Country); mainly in a specially built village. Most buildings were relocated from their original sites to form a base from where demonstrators portray life spanning 300 years of history, with a focus on 1850-1950. The museum is constantly improving as new exhibits, especially buildings, are being added. The museum is close to the site where Dud Dudley first mastered the technique of smelting iron with coal instead of wood charcoal and making iron enough for industrial use. Having a claim to be "the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution", the Black Country is famous for
Black Country Living Museum boat dock dock is typical of the many on the Black Country canal system of the period and is equipped to build new working craft and to repair those of iron or composite construction. The dock can accommodate three boats, drawn sideways out of the water by winches onto the slip. There are a number of different buildings on the boat dock each serving a specific purpose. Based on an 1880s design the blacksmith shop would have wrought all the supplies needed for boat repair such as specialist nails and bolts and the L shaped boat 'knees' used to reinforce the boat