When Blists Hill Open Air Museum (now The Blists Hill Victorian Town) opened to the public in 1973 the process of creating a Victorian community had not been envisaged.

The site contained insitu remains of previous industrial activity, a stretch of the Shropshire (later Shropshire Union) Canal, remains of Blast Furnaces built in the middle of the nineteenth century and substantial remnants of a Brick & Tile works which covered the whole of the top of the site by the end of the nineteenth century.

A canal warehouse from Wappenshall on the Newport branch of the Shropshire Union Canal was brought to Blists Hill and converted into a carpenter’s workshop. In addition a building was created to hold a collection of printing equipment from Kington in Herefordshire. From then on the museum began to grow at a faster pace and the concept of “a town” began to materialise.