Black Country Living Museum 1960s Weekend
In mid May I decided to visit The Black Country Living Museum 1960s Weekend. The museum tries to recreate a midlands town from the 1940’s to 1960’s. Many of the shops are recreations of actual shops that existed locally. I was able to attend during the day on both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately there were only a handful of people dressed in 1960s fashion during the day. Apparently lots more attended just for the Saturday evening entertainment but tickets for this had already sold out.
Black Country Living Museum 1960s Weekend Tickets
For daytime entry to the Black Country Living Museum you need to buy a general admission ticket. Once purchased this ticket allows you free entry to the museum for another 12 months. This is actually pretty decent value if you expect to be a regular visitor. I attended both days for the 1960s weekend and I would later use my ticket to enter both days for their 1940s weekend as well. The prices of general admission tickets are as follows:
- Adult 16+ – £26.95
- Over 65 – £25.95
- Unwaged – £23.95
- Student – £23.95
- Young Person 3-15 – £14.95
- Essential Carer – £0.00
- Child 0-2 – £0.00
They also do a variety of family tickets ranging from 1 adult and 3 young people to 2 adults and 3 young people. Tickets can be bought online from their website in advance or at the ticket counter on the day. I purchased mine in advance and downloaded the PDF ticket to my phone downloads folder for future visits.
You can also become a museum member which gives various additional benefits over the general admission ticket. The membership price for an individual is £49.95 and as well as the 12 months entry to the museum, other benefits include:
- Discounts and priority booking on special events
- Free parking
- Discounts in the various shops within the museum
For very regular visitors to the museum the membership price probably makes sense, particularly if you drive to the museum and normally pay for their parking.
Black Country Living Museum 1960s Gallery
As previously mentioned there were only a handful of visitors during the day who were dressed in 1960’s fashion. Thankfully there were some performers like The Flaming Feathers and museum staff who got into the spirit of the event. For instance the image at the top of this article is a young woman who was working in the newsagents / sweet shop. The sweets on display were not for purchase but were a great reminder of the confectionery of the time (mostly 1950’s I believe). There are a large number of period shops you can visit. The following are just a small sample:
- Stanton’s Music Shop
- A Hartill Motorcycles
- The Worker’s Institute & Cafe (this is where you will also find the period police station)
- H. Morrall’s Gentleman’s Outfitters
- T Cook’s Sweet Shop
- Gregory’s General Store
The gallery below features a small sample of my images. You can find more at my Facebook gallery for this event.
Summary
I really enjoyed my visit to the Black Country Living Museum 1960s Weekend. I wish I had been able to also attend the Saturday evening special event as there was lots of live music as well as lots more visitors dressed in 1960s clothing. I’ve noticed that there are a large number of great 1940’s weekends that take place in the UK but it’s hard to find good 1960’s weekends. It seems odd to me as the decade was so vibrant for music, fashion and design, especially here in the UK which was considered the centre of the ‘swinging 60’s.
For those thinking of visiting The Black Country Living Museum I would suggest visiting their website. It’s probably an interesting place to visit on any day of the week but personally I think it becomes even more interesting if you are able to visit for one of their special events like their 60’s weekend, their 40’s weekend or indeed one of their Peaky Blinders events.
