Our collections
Preserving the Black Country's heritage
We have over 80,000 items in our collection, from clothing and cutlery to our buildings and buses. The Museum’s entire collections were ‘Designated’ by Arts Council England in 2012, recognising their quality and national significance.
The Museum preserves a section of the Black Country’s industrial landscape, including two mine shafts, limekilns and a canal arm. The Museum has also relocated and rebuilt (brick-by-brick) several buildings, which have been drawn from across the many small towns of the region.
Each house, shop and workshop has been filled with collections, from sad irons to nails, that would have been seen in situ from the 1800s to the 1960s.
Explore our collection
There are over 80,000 items in our collection, including buildings, cars, sad irons, trolley buses, photographs, shops, locks, canal boats, catalogues, and glass.
Search by keyword to take a look through our online database and discover what we have. More of our collection will be added to our database in the future as we create more digital records of our items.
Make a donation
We’d love to hear from you if you have an item that you think might be perfect for our collections and are very grateful for all the offers we receive.
“The Black Country, black by day and red by night, cannot be matched for vast and varied production, by any other space of equal radius on the surface of the globe.”
Elihu Burritt, American Consul to Birmingham, 1868