Building on history

1:49pm Thursday 7th August 2008

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SOME of the best days out are the ones which combine indoors and outdoors – and there are plenty of places within reach of Hereford that hit that particular spot.

Three particularly fascinating places to visit are museums which offer visitors a great taste of the past – Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings in Stoke Heath, Bromsgrove, St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh Life in Cardiff and Blists Hill, one of 10 museums in Ironbridge.

At all three, you can take a step into history as you explore historic buildings that have been rescued, restored and rebuilt on the sites.

At Avoncroft, you can see 25 important buildings and structures, including the Merchant’s House which was the original exhibit, a 17th century cock pit, a Victorian Mission Church, a windmill and a 1946 prefab.

The Welsh Museum of Life at St Fagan’s has seen more than 40 original buildings from different historical periods re-erected in 100 acres of parkland. Among them are houses, a farm, a school, a chapel and a splendid Workmen’s Institute, not to mention a pig-sty. There are also workshops where craftsmen still demonstrate their traditional skills.

At Blists Hill Museum in Ironbridge you can experience life in a Victorian town, where the bank will exchange your decimal currency for Victorian coins to spend in the shops.

To find out more, visit ironbridge.org.uk; museumwales.ac.uk or avoncroft.org.uk