Eat, Drink, Shop

On entry to the Museum, Café Black Country (situated in our Visitor Centre) has a selection of cakes and sandwiches. Why not grab a takeaway drink to enjoy around the Museum?

We proudly serve UK farmed seasonal fruits and vegetables where possible to reduce our environmental impact.

A range of sandwiches, cakes, jacket potatoes and homemade soup, and drinks can be purchased from the Workers’ Institute Café to eat in or take away. Children’s options are also available.

The Cradley Heath Workers’ Institute stands as a monument to the struggle of the women chain makers of Cradley Heath who laid down their tools in 1910 to strike for a living wage, focusing international attention on the plight of Britain’s low paid workers and establishing the principle of a minimum wage.

The Workers’ Institute became a centre for educational meetings, social gatherings and trade union activities. Between 1915-1933, its auditorium opened as a picture house, being known locally as ‘The Stute’.

In 2004, the building was threatened with demolition. The Museum was approached to save it. The take down enabled the original interior layout, which had been obscured by later alterations, to be reinstated.

Hobbs’ and Sons Fish & Chip Shop offers traditionally cooked fish and chips in beef dripping (vegetarian and gluten free alternatives are  available upon request).

The building housing Hobbs’ and Sons Fish & Chip Shop comes from Hall Street, Dudley. It dates to the late 1700s but was refaced with bright red pressed brickwork in 1889. 

In the early 1900s, the shop served as a commercial laundry with Joseph Hobbs establishing his chips shop around 1916.

The impressive tiled interior of the chip shop features hand-painted tiled wall panels made by Pilkington’s Tile & Pottery Company, Manchester, that have been carefully restored.

The involvement of the Hobbs family ended in 1976 when Joe’s daughter, Joyce (born 1916) retired. The shop then continued as a Greek kebab shop until 2000, after which it remained unoccupied and derelict until the Museum commenced dismantling the structure in 2006. 

Fish and chips are available to eat-in (in the reconstructed saloon set in 1935) or takeaway. 

On busier days, Village Fried Fish will also be open, serving our traditional fish and chips. However, we are unable to offer vegetarian and gluten free alternatives here. 

Enjoy locally-made pork pies, hot meat cobs, and faggots with mushy peas.

The Marsh & Baxter company began with Alfred Marsh purchasing a butcher’s shop in Brierley Hill in 1867. Marsh’s products proved very popular, and he soon expanded by first mechanizing his production process, introducing machinery and refrigeration to the factory to enable production of bacon, sausages, hams and pork pies on an industrial scale, all year round.

In 1912, Marsh took over A.R. Baxter’s meat processing factory in Dale End, Birmingham and another five shops, gained a royal warrant, and rapidly grew into probably the biggest firm of its type in the country – even bigger than its local competitor, Dudley Port’s Palethorpes.

Our shop is set in 1953 and is a replica of the premise in High Street, Brierley Hill. 

If you’re looking for a drink, the Bottle & Glass Inn is available. It serves a range of alcoholic and soft drinks, along with bar snacks and cobs. 

The Bottle & Glass Inn stood originally by the junction of Moor Street and Leys Road on Brierley Hill Road, Buckpool. The exact date of construction is unknown but it was probably built shortly after the canal was cut between 1776 and 1779.

Inside and to the left of the front door is the main bar with a plain wooden counter, scrubbed floor sprinkled with sawdust and cast-iron stove. To the right is the snug. This has a quarry tiled floor, a large open fire place with a high mantle shelf and an original elm settle opposite the window; the back room is a later addition.

Instances of drunkenness and disreputable behaviour punctuate the history of the pub. In1857, Henry Wiggin, the landlord, was fined five shillings for selling alcohol ‘during the hours of divine service’. 

The Hereford and Tredegar Brewery was taken over by Ansells in 1937. They presented the building to the Museum following closure in 1979. Today, it is set in 1915 serving traditional cask conditioned beers.

Please note: we operate a challenge 25 policy on alcohol sales at the Museum.

The Elephant & Castle Pub serves a range of alcoholic and soft drinks, and cold lunches including cobs. 

Our restaurant menu is inspired by Black Country recipes using local suppliers, with children’s options also available. Hot food is served upstairs between 11.30am - 2.30pm on weekends and school holidays. The upstairs is accessible via lift – please speak to our team for any access assistance.

The Elephant & Castle Public House was built in 1905 on the corner of Stafford Street and Cannock Road, Wolverhampton. In 1910, it was sold to Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, the largest brewery in the Black Country, and became part of Banks’s pub estate. It was sold off in the 1990s, closed in 2000, and was knocked down in 2001.

The Museum’s recreation is set in 1960. We used a mixture of archived plans, family photographs and bricks salvaged from the site to design the building. We are grateful to former customers, landlords and their families for providing all the information to recreate the inside of the pub.

The pub was a friendly meeting place for people from all over the world. The Black Country was booming and drawing workers from all over the world to meet the labour shortage. Irish workers found work in construction by talking to the right people. Men from India working in nearby foundries met here to reminisce. Caribbean men working at the nearby bus garage met to play dominoes.

Objects we have collected to populate our recreation include Banks’s branded dominoes, trays, glasses, mugs and cards. The fireplace in the smoking room is from a house in Lower Gornal and the Minton tiles in the Cannock Road entrance were collected from a house in Stourbridge. The upstairs bar is from the Gypsy’s Tent in Dudley. Much of the furniture has been donated by Marston’s, current owners of Banks’s.

Please note: we operate a challenge 25 policy on alcohol sales at the Museum.

Indulge your sweet tooth in T. Cook’s Sweet Shop with a wide selection available, including traditional kali and bonbons. 

Our sweet shop occupies one half of a replica of 48 and 50 Birmingham Street, Oldbury. These two shops were built around 1845. Number 48 has been reconstructed as a traditional sweet shop with a rear work room and named after the shop run by Thomas Cook and his family at 21 Bond Street, Dudley, from 1871-1901.

Our sweet shop is set around 1900.