Black Country Living Museum the years but not converted into a waltzer. It remains one of the few "fourlift" Arks in the country. Work began on the boat dock in 1976 and the museum aimed to recreate a typical dock that would have been found on the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN). Docks like the one at the museum would have been formed from recycled wooden boats. They were used to build wooden boats or maintain iron and composite boats. Adjacent to the museum is the Dudley Tunnel. Visitors can take a 45-minute skipper-guided trip into the tunnel through the historic limestone mines and caverns
Black Country Baggins may have been based on Tolkien's observation of Mayor Ben Bilboe of Bilston in The Black Country, who was a Communist and Labour Party member from the Lunt in Bilston. But the scholarly evidence for this is still questionable. The Black Country is notable for its small breweries and brewpubs which, unlike most in Britain, continued brewing their own beer alongside larger breweries which opened in the Industrial Revolution. Small breweries and brewpubs in the Black Country include Bathams in Brierley Hill, Holdens in Woodsetton, Sarah Hughes in Sedgley and the Old Swan Inn (Ma Pardoe's) in Netherton. They