Established | 1980 |
---|---|
Location | Kingswinford, West Midlands |
Coordinates | 52°29′31″N2°10′09″W / 52.4919°N 2.1693°W |
Type | Art, craft and social history museum |
Website | www |
Broadfield House, a Grade II listed building, [1] was home to a glass museum and hot glass studio, owned and operated by Dudley Council museum service and was located in Kingswinford, West Midlands, England. The museum closed on 30 September 2015.
It displayed a huge variety of glass objects, dating from the 17th century to the present day, across nine galleries. In addition to the glass displays were several paintings that demonstrate glass making and the local landscape. The museum also displayed glass making tools and ephemera produced by the glass industry. Various events and temporary exhibitions were held throughout its history. [2] To complete the visitor experience it had a shop that sold various souvenirs, books, vintage glassware and products from contemporary glassmakers.
The collection is now displayed at Stourbridge Glass Museum.
The building has hosted many contrasting occupants. The original structure was a modest two-storey farmhouse built in the mid or late 18th century and faced Barnett Lane. The threshing barn (now the Hot Glass Studio) dates from the same period and serves as a reminder that two hundred years ago this area was open country and farmland. In the early 1800s the house was transformed into a much grander residence when a fine three-storey Regency block with sash windows and portico was built onto the back of the original building. This then formed the main entrance, reversing the orientation of the original house.
In 1943 the house, along with 16 acres, was purchased by Kenneth George MacMaster, an engineering contactor and property developer. The following year MacMaster sold the house to Dennis Smith from Tividale. Smith was the last private owner of Broadfield House and lived here with his family until 1949. In 1949 the house was acquired by Staffordshire County Council for use as a Mothercraft Hostel.
Following local government reorganisation in 1966 ownership was transferred to the enlarged County Borough of Dudley. In 1969 Broadfield House became an Old People’s Home. It was not a suitable site, as illustrated by the 44 stairs and no lift. Following the creation of Dudley MBC in 1974, the Council closed the home and began looking at alternative uses for the building. Inevitably the Mothercraft Hostel and Old People's Home left their mark on the building and features remain that are suggestive of an institutional use.
In 1976 the idea emerged of using the building as a new home for the Council’s Brierley Hill and Stourbridge Glass Collections. This met with considerable opposition as the people of Brierley Hill and Stourbridge were very protective of their collections and did not want them moved from their respective towns. At the final Council meeting, the decision to go ahead won by only one vote! Conversion work began in 1979 and Broadfield House Glass Museum was officially opened by Princess Michael of Kent on 2 April 1980. [3]
The museum closed on 30 September 2015. The collection is now displayed at Stourbridge Glass Museum, which opened on 9 April 2022. [4]
The museum held various temporary exhibitions, with local, national and international artists represented, featuring historical and contemporary glassworks. [5]
The Hot Glass Studio is sponsored by The Hulbert Group of Dudley and has been made available for use by graduates and established glass-blowers. [6]
The museum housed archives from various sources, containing such items as pattern books, catalogues, description books and invoices. In addition, there is a large collection of images and recorded material providing insight into the people and the manufacturing process. [7] It also housed an extensive reference library of books and information on glassworking, including the entire library of Robert Charleston, former head of glass and ceramics at the Victoria & Albert Museum. The Charleston library includes approximately 700 books as well as his own collection of papers, articles and archival material. [8] Both the library and archive will continue to be in the care of DMBC Museum Service.
West Midlands is a metropolitan county in the West Midlands Region, England, with a 2021 population of 2,919,600, making it the second most populous county in England after Greater London. It was created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The county is a NUTS 2 region within the wider NUTS 1 region of the same name. It embraces seven metropolitan boroughs: the cities of Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, and the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall. The county is overseen by the West Midlands Combined Authority, which covers all seven boroughs and other non-constituent councils, on economy, transport and housing.
The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its role as one of the birth places of the Industrial Revolution across the English Midlands with coal mines, coking, iron foundries, glass factories, brickworks and steel mills, producing a high level of air pollution.
Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, 5.5 miles (8.9 km) southeast of Wolverhampton and 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; in 2011 it had a population of 79,379. The Metropolitan Borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen, had a population of 312,900. In 2014 the borough council named Dudley as the capital of the Black Country.
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.
Halesowen is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the county of West Midlands, England.
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The 2011 UK census recorded the town's population as 63,298.
The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen.
Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 2.5 miles south of Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a population of 13,935 at the 2011 census. It is best known for glass and steel manufacturing, although industry has declined considerably since the 1970s. One of the largest factories in the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which closed down and was redeveloped in the 1980s to become the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire.
Kingswinford is a town of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the English West Midlands, situated 5 miles (8.0 km) west-southwest of central Dudley. In 2011 the area had a population of 25,191, down from 25,808 at the 2001 Census.
Amblecote is an urban village and one of the most affluent areas in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It lies immediately north of the historic town of Stourbridge, extending about one and a half miles from it, and is on the southwestern edge of the West Midlands conurbation. Historically, Amblecote was in the parish of Oldswinford, but unlike the rest of the parish it was in Staffordshire, and as such was administered separately.
Dudley South is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Mike Wood of the Conservative Party.
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Quarry Bank is an area in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, covered by the Brierley Hill DY5 postal district. Locally, the name is often pronounced, "Quarry Bonk".
The County Borough of Dudley was a local government district in the English Midlands from 1865 to 1974. Originally a municipal borough, it became a county borough in 1889, centred on the main town centre of Dudley, along with the suburbs of Netherton and Woodside. Although surrounded by Staffordshire, the borough was associated with Worcestershire for non-administrative purposes, forming an exclave of the county until 1966, when it was transferred to Staffordshire after an expansion of the borough boundaries. Following local government reorganization in 1974, Dudley took in the boroughs of Halesowen and Stourbridge to form the present-day Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the newly formed West Midlands county.
The Red House Cone is a glass cone located in Wordsley in the West Midlands, adjacent to the Stourbridge Canal bridge on the A491 High Street. It is a 90-foot (27 m) high conical brick structure with a diameter of 60 feet (18 m), used for the production of glass. It was used by the Stuart Crystal firm till 1936, when the company moved to a new facility at Vine Street. It is one of only four complete cones remaining in the United Kingdom.
Wall Heath is a suburban village in the Dudley Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands of England. It is located on the A449 road, approximately 1.5 miles northwest of Kingswinford, 5 miles west of Dudley Town Centre and 9 miles north of Kidderminster. It forms part of the West Midlands-South Staffordshire border.
Woodside is a residential area of Dudley in the West Midlands of England.
Dudley Museum and Art Gallery was a public museum and art gallery located in the town centre of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It was opened in 1883, situated within buildings on St James's Road, and remained at that site until its closure in 2016. Some of the museum collections have since been relocated to the Dudley Archives centre on Tipton Road.
Alison Kinnaird MBE, MA, FGE is a glass sculptor, Celtic musician, teacher and writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is one of the foremost and most original modern glass engravers in Scotland.
Wrexham County Borough Museum is a local history museum in Wrexham, Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It is located within County Buildings, alongside the A. N. Palmer Centre for Local Studies and Archives and a proposed Football Museum for Wales. The building is located on Regent Street, in the city centre. The museum is managed by the Wrexham Heritage & Archives Service, which in turn, is operated by Wrexham County Borough Council as part of its Housing & Economy Department.