Recommendations for two days in England: Black Country and Bristol area

[ItsOnlyWordsInnit]

We're coming to the UK for a few days next week - first time since before Covid (and Brexit) - and we still have a few days open at the end to fill. We'll be free from Friday lunchtime (leaving Abingdon) until we bring the car back around 11am on Sunday (Bristol Airport). No kids! Does anyone have any other recommendations for the following areas, and especially for non-sleazy/non-dirty accommodation? I'm OK with a B+B as long as it's clean.

I'm thinking of going to the Black Country first, having recently discovered that most of my ancestors were dirt poor miners/metalworkers there in the 19th century. is the Black Country Living Museum actually as good and informative as it sounds? Do the re-enactors actually have an idea what they're talking about? Is it going to be packed with families on a Saturday in September? Are there any museums in the area that actually give a better overview of the industrial heritage? And what kind of accommodation would be good around there?

If people would tend to advise against the whole Tipton/Dudley area, for whatever reason, an alternative might be Cheddar Gorge - we've never been there. Are the caves good without being over-commercialised? Are there some good walks in the area that we can do with trainers rather than walking boots? Again: tips for accommodation are welcome.

Finally, for the Saturday night we want to be within an hour of the airport, and I think somewhere along the west coast would be nice. My original idea of Weston-Super-Mare has been zapped by people who live nearby and say it's, em, not the nicest place, with a beach of mud. So where along that coast would be a good place to spend a night, looking out onto the estuary/sea? Again, doesn't need to be super-fancy or boutique accommodation, but a sea view or close to the sea would be nice, and somewhere we can walk along a quiet sandy beach (there's no coast where we live).

Thanks for any tips or advice.

We haven’t been to BCLM for a few years, not since lockdown anyway. When we were there last it was excellent. Really engaging.
More recently we’ve been to Ironbridge Gorge and would definitely recommend. Could have spent a whole week there doing all of the museums and experiences, so if you like the look of it I’d suggest staying as close as possible in order to make the most of your time www.ironbridge.org.uk/plan/where-to-stay/

The Black Country museum is amazing and you will get a fantastic idea of how your family lived and spoke. It's a whole day out and I can't recommend it enough. Its a big place so it wont feel too crowded. Lots of Peaky Blinders was filmed there if you like that. Its authentic because they are actually real buildings taken down and recreated on site. Don't forget to go down the mine and on the canal trip into the limestone caverns. Try the Himley House Hotel on the edge of town and next to a country park if you want somewhere peaceful. Or next to the Merry Hill shopping centre if you like shopping.
There is Dudley Zoo too but that is also another whole day out.

Ironbridge is lovely too but it won't have the same meaning to you and is not the Black Country.

Ah, I‘ve heard of Ironbridge, if we fit that in iconbined with the living museum, would be great for a day.
good to hear that the BCLM is worth it, we‘ll go for that.
I‘ve never watched Peaky Blinders so wouldn’t go for that reason alone, but my DD is s big fan so maybe I can impress her with some photos.
any ideas about hotels or B+Bs in the area?

Yes the BCLM is brilliant. Ironbridge seconded too. Bridgnorth is lovely. If you like shopping there's Merry Hill (or Merry Hell depends on your opinion!). Mad o'Rourke's pie shop and the crooked house pub worth visits. Don't know about b and b places but plenty of them and also Ibis/ Travelodge places

For the BCLM try either Dudley premier Inn or the Village Hotel. You can walk to the museum from there and save the car park fee. Both in a sort of leisure park.

The Copthorne at Merry Hill is a few minutes drive and you can go to the shopping centre and restaurants from there.
Altogether quieter is the Himley House about 15 minutes drive. And nicer but depends what you want to do in the evening.

I agree if you have time, go to Bridgnorth but if you only have one day, do the BCLM

By the way , Ironbridge and The BCLM are both day trips - you can't do both in a day. They are about 50 minutes apart and both big museums (BCLM is the biggest)
I am doing genealogy in the area too - DM me if you want any information about places. I'm guessing you aren't familiar with the area?

Waves to fellow dirt poor ancestor Black Country miner/metalworker people!

Have you considered combining the BCLM with staying in Birmingham itself? It would give you a lot more choice of accommodation and shorter things to do around a day at the museum, also eating out.

Thanks to all of you! And apologies for the appalling typos in my last post - was typing on a rocky bus.

I think I'm going to go for the Village Hotel, despite a few dodgy reviews. But the recent reviews for Himley House were a lot worse - lots of 3/4/5 out of 10 on Booking.com. It's a pity because I would usually prefer a small independent hotel over one of the big chains, and it does look like a nice building, but not when every single guest is mentioning the poor state of the rooms. Village Hotel is close to the museum too and we'll pay the extra for pool use, so thanks for that tip.

"Ironbridge and The BCLM are both day trips - you can't do both in a day. They are about 50 minutes apart and both big museums (BCLM is the biggest)"

Ah, thanks for telling us that - we'll just concentrate on the BCLM then.

"I am doing genealogy in the area too - DM me if you want any information about places. I'm guessing you aren't familiar with the area?" - Hi Sluj, thanks so much for that offer, might well take you up on it. You're right, I don't know the Black Country at all. I once spent a year in Coventry but never ventured to the left of Birmingham, as it were. All my ancestors seem to have moved north to Lancashire by 1900 (more mining work there?) so it's never been a part of family legend and came as a total surprise. Turns out that various parts of the family lived all over the West Midlands, from as far south as Worcester/Kidderminster, then up to West Brom, Tipton, Dudley, Gospel End, and as far as Lichfield. They moved frequently, presumably to yet another insecure tenancy/mine/factory. I plan to print out all the census forms at the weekend and that will tell me where people were living exactly and what their jobs were. If I need to know anything in particular, is it OK if I DM you next week?

"Waves to fellow dirt poor ancestor Black Country miner/metalworker people!". <Waves back>. We're the people whose hard work made other people that much richer! Actually the industrial Tipton/Dudley crowd were comparatively posh in that they at least functioned as an intact family. I've discovered two other branches that seem to have imploded, leaving the orphaned kids in the workhouse :-(.

Still need to find somewhere nice for west of Bristol though...

@ItsOnlyWordsInnit really glad the plans are coming together and hopefully someone will have good ideas for the Bristol area "leg". We certainly had ancestors in the same areas and some of my miners ended up in Yorkshire, i imagine for similar reasons.

Don't know if you're familiar with the work of Edwin Butler Bayliss? I think his depictions of that area are marvellous

www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/ebb/

Enjoy the museum. You can probably leave your car at the hotel and walk to the museum to save the parking fee. Dont forget to try the traditional chip shop but get there early for that. The short canal trip is really good too but I think its a couple of pounds extra . I hope you don't have trouble understanding the accents!! 😄

I'll gladly help with any thing family tree related. My lot were in Dudley, and a few in Tipton even before the industrial revolution but some came from Shropshire. A few of the miners and steel workers also ended up in Yorkshire. They weren't rich but always had employment which was lucky. They also had strong family and community values which are still a feature of the Black Country.

To Hell with it, I don't think it will out me on here so I'm going to cryptically throw the names "Blewitt" and "Crumpton" in for @Sluj and @ItsOnlyWordsInnit in case there is a connection.

Dudley/Tipton/West Brom, bit later like 1890s on Oldbury.

I've messaged you both about my family names just in case.....

Haven't been to the caves at cheddar in years but remember them being good. They are quite commercialised though. In that area you have priddy, the reservoir and mendips (Stockhill woods, velvet bottom, Burrington) for lovely walks which should be doable this time of year with just trainers.

Sorry for the delay again in replying, I wanted to wait until I could access the site on desktop rather than just phone.

@CPL593H
Don't know if you're familiar with the work of Edwin Butler Bayliss? I think his depictions of that area are marvellous

www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/ebb/

Thanks so much for that tip, I hadn't heard of him. It looks pretty grim, but rather an honest account than pretty, romanticised views. I see a few of them are labelled as Bilson - that place crops up for a few ancestors. And there's a barge in front of 'Blast Furnaces Bilston' - another of my ancestors from Tipton was a boatman so possibly did that kind of barge work.

@CPL593H @Sluj

Blewitt and Crumpton don't appear anywhere in my family tree, sadly (but there's a Crump branch in Worcestor that landed up in Kidderminster workhouse). Sluj, none of the names mentioned in your DM appear either - although I'm very impressed with one of those names! I'll DM back to you with my main family names. Although there are quite a few Dudley entries, now I've looked again most are from Tipton or Sedgley/Gospel End/Brierley Hill, going back to the 17th century in some cases, so they were also based in the area pre-industrialisation.

'I hope you don't have trouble understanding the accents!!' - I love the local accent, it's so friendly and honest-sounding. I watch a local YouTuber called GeoWizard who did a 'straight-line mission' through the area (10 miles in an entirely straight line, through factories and shops etc - he went through the museum and the zoo too).

DH is not from the UK and struggles with a lot of local British accents though - does Google Translate do Black Country? 😀

So far, printing a few census returns I've found families at 3 Brook Street and 13 Factory Road in Tipton, but Google Maps shows both as having been totally rebuilt.

'They also had strong family and community values which are still a feature of the Black Country.' Yes, the families I've found do seem to have remained intact as a unit, although I always wonder how much the census reveals the full story. The family in Lichfield/Brereton/Rugely were telling massive porkies about their age and family relationships - maybe they just weren't Black Country enough 😀.

"Dont forget to try the traditional chip shop but get there early for that." It's high on my list! Basically we see a trip to the UK as non-stop food indulgence, I have a 'hit list' of delicacies to get through: fish'n'chips, pies, real ale, ploughmans, full English breakfast, soreen malt loaf, eccles cakes.

Still not booked anywhere for the Saturday night. Thanks for the Cheddar recommendation, @Jericha. I think in the meantime DH and I have decided we would like to at least see the sea for our final night, since we live so far inland. But I'm putting Cheddar top of the list for our next stay!

With regards to the Bristol leg of the journey you would need to go as far as somewhere like Minehead before you get a half decent beach , as anywhere further up the Bristol Channel is subject to (perilous) mud flats at low tide. The distance from Minehead to Bristol Airport would probably put paid to that idea.
Have you thought about staying in Bristol or Bath? I know both cities well as I live locally (so couldn't advise on accommodation as we have no need of it).

We took our daughter to the Black Country Museum and enjoyed ourselves too. If you wanted a more recent version of coal mining, you could visit the Big Pit at Blaenavon (near(ish) to Cardiff). We've done it as a day trip from Bath museum.wales/bigpit/about/

"With regards to the Bristol leg of the journey you would need to go as far as somewhere like Minehead before you get a half decent beach , as anywhere further up the Bristol Channel is subject to (perilous) mud flats at low tide. The distance from Minehead to Bristol Airport would probably put paid to that idea."

Ah, so the Weston-Super-Mud moniker is true then! I was worried about that, but maybe it's just enough if we can see the sea and admire the mud.
Minehead really is too far, but ONOH I went to Butlins Minehead aged 3 and loved it! So I have a ridiculously romantic vision of that place.

"Have you thought about staying in Bristol or Bath?"
I grew up not too far away so have been to both multiple times. I really, really don't want to go to Bristol for several reasons. But I think DH might appreciate a Jane Austen binge in Bath, come to think of it.

"If you wanted a more recent version of coal mining, you could visit the Big Pit at Blaenavon (near(ish) to Cardiff)." It's a great tip, thanks, but I've been there several times since it opened in the 80s (was it then?). I've also read the Alexander Cordell books.

Aarrgghh, have to book this bloody hotel soon.

I’ve always wanted to see the back-to-backs run by the NT in Birmingham as someone whose ancestors would have lived in them - miners etc

Nicest seaside town near Bristol is Clevedon IMHO. Lovely Victorian pier. No beach to speak of though.

I've lost track of when "next week" might be but it's the bloomin Jane Austen Festival in central Bath starting shortly:

janeausten.co.uk/pages/festival-2022-overview

It's always fun to watch the day-trippers' jaws drop when they encounter a group in full Georgian regalia stocking up at the supermarket.

No need to wear costumes!