Writing An American Tourist Guide To England a few months back set me thinking about how much many of us take for granted our own country, preferring to visit Notre Dame Cathedral instead of Salisbury, The Prado instead of The Tate, ignoring our wonderful Industrial Museums, and having no idea of the significance of Magna Carta, Mappa Mundi or even where to find them. I suppose it was this sort of ignorance or myopia that led the Labour MP for Wolverhampton Eleanor Smith to sound off about the flag representing The Black Country of the Industrial Midlands of England to be racist!
Thus was born The Two Doctors Tour of England, a personal list of things and places we want to see, divided into 5 geographical areas that will take us several months to visit.
Area #1: The Industrial Midlands, The Potteries
The Gladstone Pottery first opened in 1787 and continued production up to 1974 when it closed as a factory and opened as a Museum. We first visited with our children in the early 1980s having been inspired by Arnold Bennett’s classic Anna of The Five Towns set in a Victorian pottery factory in Industrial middle England. Longton is one of the five towns making up The Potteries, (Stoke is the 6th!) and the Museum with it’s carefully preserved bottle kilns is set right in the heart of the town.
As well as the bottle kilns you can walk through engine rooms, workshops for saggar making, see pots being thrown, and watch highly skilled painting of ornaments such as birds, flowers, plates, vases, bowls……
Probably the favourite of the younger visitor however is the Toilet Gallery proving that Thomas Crapper WAS a real person who revolutionised toilets and toilet humour too! 
Next, onwards to The Ironbridge Gorge Museums, especially the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, and Blists Hill Victorian Town Museum.
Categories: England, Industrial Rides, Travel
Tour of England #1 Industrial Midlands: Blists Hill Victorian Museum 
Postcard from England #2, Blists Hill Victorian Town 
Postcard from England #1, The Gladstone Pottery Museum 
The Two Doctors 
So true: after 30 yrs living in the area, we finally have the time and inclination to explore our surroundings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that the feeling of running OUT of time is a major motivator too 😂😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep 😄 And the fact we don have whining teenagers to drag around anymore 👍🏻
LikeLike
Very interesting. My parents both worked in the potteries in Medicine Hat, Alberta in the 1940s. Medalta Pottery is now a museum which I recently visited during my trip home. These places are amazing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes they are really amazing places. I worked in an ironworks when I first left school before university and that experience has been a strong memory too, visiting Coalbrookdale museum of iron next ….. 👍
LikeLiked by 1 person