Alistair Hardaker | Image: Woodside Library at Black Country Living Museum
Woodside Library, gifted to Dudley in 1894 and closed in 2008, opens at Black Country Living Museum after complete reconstruction with 6,500 period books.
Black Country Living Museum has completed the brick-by-brick relocation and reconstruction of Woodside Library, marking the final element of its multi-million-pound 1940s-1960s development project. The historic building opens to visitors from Wednesday 18 March.
Originally gifted to the people of Dudley by the Earl of Dudley in 1894, the library served local communities for over a century before closing in 2008. The building has been physically moved from its original location and rebuilt on the museum’s new high street, where it stands as the tallest architectural structure in the development.
Visitors will be able to explore shelves containing more than 6,500 donated and collected books spanning from how-to guides and classic fiction to children’s favourites including Enid Blyton, Ladybird books and Biggles adventure stories. The library’s interpretation centres on 1963, when Dudley’s libraries embraced colourful new paperbacks, expanded gramophone collections and introduced innovative children’s reading initiatives.
The library completes the 1940s-60s development, which already includes Wolverhampton’s Elephant & Castle Pub, Stanton’s Music Shop of Dudley, Marsh & Baxter pork butchers of Brierley Hill and other local buildings.
Carol King, Deputy chief executive at Black Country Living Museum, said of the library: “Not only is it an architecturally beautiful building, it also holds beautiful stories from pioneering reading schemes for children to momentous wedding receptions for local happy couples. We can’t wait to open the doors and welcome our visitors in.”
Detailed research, along with objects and memories shared by the local community, helped inform the restoration. The museum worked with FCC Communities Foundation, which provided funding support through the Landfill Communities Fund.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded a grant of over £15 million to the project. The museum continues to collect 1960s-appropriate books to complete the library’s shelves. The collections team is especially seeking 1960s editions of Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, which were considered top picks by Woodside’s librarian at the time.
