Black Country Living Museum and designed by architect J W Penfold and made by Cochrane, Grove and Company. The Carter's Yard from Ogley Hay Road Burntwood, Cannock was built around 1900. It was dismantled and brought to the museum in the 1990s. Old Birmingham Road links St James's School with the Cradley Heath Workers' Institute. Here buildings have been set in the 1930s to tell the story of the years leading up to the Second World War. Museum staff in St James's School demonstrate lessons and school life from the turn of the 20th century. The school building opened in Eve Hill, Dudley in
Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country, an area of the United Kingdom. It was the basis for the area's industrial development. Without coal there was no power for its industries. In the nineteenth century commentators spoke of this region as a great coalfield, and of the "earth turned inside out" by all the mining activity. However, the mines were not the large scale operations that we know of today. They were small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery at Black Country Living Museum. There