Ironbridge - help please. What museums are worth it

[TheExclusiveSandwich]

Two adults. No kids

trying to work out, if the blisters hill museum might be a bit naff, and do we actually need to go into the Ironbridge Gorge Museum?👦

I used to live in Ironbridge. Blists Hill was the only museum that I liked, the rest I found pretty boring. I don't have much interest in the Industrial Revolution though so not the target audience I guess!

How interested are either of you in blast furnaces, engineering and the history of the Industrial revolution?

We went a lot when I was younger and I loved all the museums but this may have been due to my Dad who loved explaining all of it.

Blists Hill is the best bit. The fish and chips are amazing!

Blists Hill is great. I also enjoyed the Jackfield tile museum.
The town itself is lovely. There's a great second hand book shop. If you've got time for a pint, I highly recommend The Coracle.

Blists Hill is amazing. We went with the kids but I'd go back there without them as it was wonderful for all ages. Just try and go on a day when it's likely to be quieter so everyone else's kids don't spoil your day out 😂.

Blists Hill is great, and will take much longer than the other specialist museums. Also make sure you walk through Coalbrookdale, Coalport and
Jackfield too; so many tourists just gawp at the bridge. As well as the tile museum in Jackfield (very specialist, lots of tiles, but I enjoyed it), there is the Maws Craft centre (artist shops etc) and The Boat pub which has the flood heights marked on its entrance door. Lots of walks if you like that, from Jackfield to Irnbridge and beyond, or up the many steps of Loamhole Dingle, very pretty. You could park in the Iron museum carpark.

Yes, go to them all. It will take you all day. Blist's Hill can be especially interesting if there are people demonstrating things. I liked the tile museum more than the china museum, but we're all different, and you can always leave! It's a lovely area as well, great for a good walk round.

Thanks so much to everybody for your messages. It’s really helpful, so if I want to do these walks that you mention and bliss Hill, how does it work? Do you park at one Central Place and break off? I’m a little bit confused as you can probably tell.

You can park in several places in Jackfield, if Ironbridge 'centre' car parks are full you could walk in from there, it depends if you're going on a busy weekend. I think you can buy little maps from the tourist shops. Iron museum has its own car park. Probably park in different places, and for Blists Hill in their car park. Plenty of parking around

Thanks, we’re off tomorrow, seems the schools here have gone back.

Most of the country are on Easter holidays until next week.

I’m aware.

but here they’re back at school!

Yes, but I meant that people travel during the school holidays. It will still be busy with tourists whose kids haven't returned to school yet, it's not just the local kids who visit.

Can only repeat about Blists Hill, fantastic, all day long and yes to the fish and chips!!

Blists Hill is great and can take a day in itself. You park there and then walk around the site. The other museums are also great and have parking, but I suppose it depends partly on your interests, and I love a good bit of industrial history, as my history degree and dissertation show, so I'm happy going round it all.

I found the clay pipe museum really interesting, as I hadn't previously known how they were made. The tar tunnel is also interesting, but I can't remember if you can actually go down it these days.

(I volunteered at Blists Hill in the summer after my A-levels, back in the last century, so I am biased.)

Go to Blists Hill first, but pay the extra and get the passport ticket, that way you can do as many as possible within the year. Some only take an hour or so and I wouldn't have bothered with the tar tunnel or tile museum, but they were fab.

Blists hill is amazing and fascinates kids of all ages (and it's still my fave place as an adult). I think the Tile museum is brilliant too.

Thanks all, had a wet but OK day.

I found it a bit of a rip off with Parking as extra for most sites and unless you were visiting all of them and bought the pass it was a bit of a rip off. That was also just an unnecessary hassle.

Blistd Hill was supposed to take 4 to 5 hours but honestly I don’t know what you’d be doing there to spend that much time there. Like the school thing and like the mining train but felt a bit ripped off in all of the places.
Phil, I now know enough about iron slag and blast furnaces to last me the rest of my life. Many thanks all of you for your advice.

The fish and chips were okay, but honestly everything in Shropshire is shut all the time went to a craft place afterwards and everything was fucking shut