Wolverhampton on Screen

You might not have visited the Black Country yet... but you’ve definitely seen it. The Black Country Living Museum located in Dudley (just outside of Wolverhampton) has been the scene of many smash hit TV productions and films. 

Probably the most notable of these is Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight’s gangster epic set in Birmingham during the interwar years. Many scenes from episodes across the first five seasons of the show were filmed in the Museum’s recreations of old Back-to-backs (houses), docks, shops and factories. While the state of some of the streets depicted throughout the series would make modern-day Health and Safety inspectors do a double-take, they provide an excellent representation of what many urban areas across England were like at the time. 

Nowadays, as with the rest of the UK, you can walk down the streets of the Midlands without provoking a fight with somebody in a newsboy cap or worrying about exactly where you’re stepping. You can also see that the entrepreneurial spirit encapsulated by the Black Country Living Museum’s dockyards, shops and lime kilns is still integral to the region’s growth. 

Just as the Black Country’s manufacturers played a key role in determining how business was conducted across the UK all those years ago, Wolverhampton Science Park is home to many of the tech start-ups who will make significant contributions to the next age of industry. An area that was once known for coal mining may well become redefined as a centre of data mining and analysis. 

The Black Country Living Museum doesn’t just open a door to the region’s industrial power. It also gives antique collectors an opportunity to admire some of the gems of the past. The Museum is the scene for another hit BBC series: Antiques Roadshow. 

Fiona Bruce’s celebration of the treasures that many people had no idea were in their attics has regularly visited the museum. It makes perfect sense that the museum is the scene for such an appreciation of craftsmanship, as many merchants across the Black Country made some of the UK’s most prized possessions. Nearby Stoke-on-Trent (about half-an-hour from Wolverhampton by train) was a global centre for pottery and fine china. Josiah Wedgwood supplied wonderfully ornate tableware to Royal houses across Europe. Monarchs made key policy decisions while drinking tea from his cups.  

That’s why the TV shows filmed in and around Wolverhampton are far more than just entertainment. They provide a wonderful insight into the huge industrial and cultural impact that the Black Country and its surrounding towns and cities have made – and continue to make – on life around the world.