Location | Willenhall, England |
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Coordinates | 52°35′00″N2°03′33″W / 52.583325°N 2.059047°W Coordinates: 52°35′00″N2°03′33″W / 52.583325°N 2.059047°W |
Website | www |
The Locksmith's House (formerly Willenhall Lock Museum) is a museum in Willenhall, England. The premises, on New Road, consist of a house and backyard workshops, typical of the many family run lock making businesses which once thrived in the town. The house itself was built in 1840, but the period interiors date to 1904, [1] when the Hodson lock making family first lived there. Lock making skills are demonstrated by volunteers using original tools and equipment, such as the floor press and belt driven machinery. [2]
The Lock Museum was opened to the public in 1987. [3] Since 2003, it has been owned and managed by the Black Country Living Museum.
The house and its adjoining workshops and outbuildings were awarded Grade II listed status by English Heritage in 1984 and 1986. The listed structures include the two storey workshop on the East side of the yard [4] plus the single storey workshop (originally a stamping shop) on the West side of the yard, directly adjoining the back of the house. [5]
The business of Richard Hodson & Sons was established in 1792, according to the firm's letterhead. In 1893, it was taken on by John Hodson, who later passed it to his son Edgar. [1] The Hodsons specialised in bar padlocks and also in lighter locks - these locks would have been used to secure cargo on a lighter. Lock parts were manufactured and assembled in the two storey workshop behind the house. Completed orders would have been brought into the yard and loaded into carts. From here they could have been sent all over the world, by rail or via the extensive Midlands canal network and on to coastal ports. Hodson locks were certainly exported to South America and beyond. [6]
From the 1920s, the front room of the Locksmith's House was run as a drapers' shop by two of Edgar Hodson's sisters, Edith and Flora. The Hodson Shop operated until 1971, and the unsold stock forms a rich resource on working class costume, now in the care of Walsall Museum.
There is a wide variety of locks and keys on display in the gallery, many of which were made in Willenhall. [7]
Locksmithing is the science and art of making and defeating locks. Locksmithing is a traditional trade and in many countries requires completion of an apprenticeship. The level of formal education legally required varies from country to country from none at all, to a simple training certificate awarded by an employer, to a full diploma from an engineering college, in addition to time spent working as an apprentice.
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of 87 miles (140 km), made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the central canal section. From Bristol to Bath the waterway follows the natural course of the River Avon before the canal links it to the River Kennet at Newbury, and from there to Reading on the River Thames. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks.
Foxton Locks are ten canal locks consisting of two "staircases" each of five locks, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 3 miles (5 km) west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. They are named after the nearby village of Foxton.
The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford.
The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It is located in the centre of the Black Country, 10 miles west of Birmingham. The museum occupies 105,000 square metres of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, disused lime kilns, canal arm and former coal pits.
Willenhall is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England, with a population taken at the 2011 census of 28,480. It is situated between Wolverhampton and Walsall, historically in the county of Staffordshire. It lies upon the River Tame, and is part of the Black Country.
A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object, by supplying secret information, by a combination thereof, or it may only be able to be opened from one side, such as a door chain.
A Chubb detector lock is a lever tumbler lock with an integral security feature, a re-locking device, which frustrates unauthorised access attempts and indicates to the lock's owner that it has been interfered with. When someone tries to pick the lock or to open it using the wrong key, the lock is designed to jam in a locked state until either a special regulator key or the original key is inserted and turned in a different direction. This alerts the owner to the fact that the lock has been tampered with.
Wednesfield is a town and historic village in the City of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, It is 2 miles (3.2 km) east-northeast of Wolverhampton city centre and about 10 miles (16 km) from Birmingham and is part of the West Midlands conurbation. It was historically within the county of Staffordshire.
Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of 70 acres. It is the former natural tidal river Avon through the city but was made into its current form in 1809 when the tide was prevented from going out permanently. A tidal by-pass was dug for 2 miles through the fields of Bedminster for the river, known as the "River Avon New Cut", "New Cut", or simply "The Cut". It is often called the Floating Harbour as the water level remains constant and it is not affected by the state of the tide on the river in the Avon Gorge, The New Cut or the natural river southeast of Temple Meads to its source.
The Birmingham Back to Backs are the city's last surviving court of back-to-back houses. They are preserved as examples of the thousands of similar houses that were built around shared courtyards, for the rapidly increasing population of Britain's expanding industrial towns. They are a very particular sort of British terraced housing. This sort of housing was deemed unsatisfactory, and the passage of the Public Health Act 1875 meant that no more were built; instead byelaw terraced houses took their place. This court, at 50–54 Inge Street and 55–63 Hurst Street, is now operated as a historic house museum by the National Trust.
New Invention is a large estate around three miles (4.8 km) north of the town of Willenhall and four miles (6.4 km) east of the city of Wolverhampton in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is halfway between Walsall and Wolverhampton on the busy main A4124 and A462 roads.
Camden Lock is a small part of Camden Town, London Borough of Camden, England, which was formerly a wharf with stables on the Regent's Canal. It is immediately to the north of Hampstead Road Locks, a twin manually operated lock. The twin locks together are "Hampstead Road Lock 1"; each bears a sign so marked. Hawley Lock and Kentish Town Lock are a short distance away to the east; to the west is a long level pound — it is 27 miles (43 km) to the next lock.
The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line is the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England.
Wolverhampton is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians".
The Underfall Yard is a historic boatyard on Spike Island serving Bristol Harbour in England.
The buildings and architecture of Bath, a city in Somerset in the south west of England, reveal significant examples of the architecture of England, from the Roman Baths, to the present day. The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987, largely because of its architectural history and the way in which the city landscape draws together public and private buildings and spaces. The many examples of Palladian architecture are purposefully integrated with the urban spaces to provide "picturesque aestheticism". In 2021, the city was added to a second World Heritage Site, a group of historic spa towns across Europe known as the "Great Spas of Europe". Bath is the only entire city in Britain to achieve World Heritage status, and is a popular tourist destination.
Leah's Yard is a former collection of small industrial workshops situated on Cambridge Street in the city centre of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. The building has been designated as a Grade II* listed building because of its importance as an example of Sheffield's industrial heritage and is currently undergoing a significant restoration to bring it back into use.
Walsall Museum Service's nationally significant Hodson Shop Collection comprises the unsold shop stock of a general drapers' shop in the small town of Willenhall in the West Midlands of England. It contains everyday clothing from the mid-twentieth century aimed at ordinary working-class and lower middle-class women and their children. These are garments and accessories that rarely find their way into museum collections, making this an unusual and interesting resource for the study of everyday clothing.
Willenhall Library, formerly Willenhall Town Hall, is a municipal building in Walsall Street in Willenhall, West Midlands, England. The building, which was the headquarters of Willenhall Urban District Council, is a locally listed building.
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