Image: A sign for The Sunflower Room at Blists Hill Victorian Town (The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust)
The new Sunflower Room at Blists Hill Victorian Town provides a quiet space for visitors with special needs, mental health conditions and parents feeding children.
A new calm space is to be opened at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Telford, the result of a project funded by capital from five trusts and foundations.
The attraction, managed by The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, has opened the ‘Sunflower Room’ at its largest museum to provide a space for visitors to find privacy and quiet.
Inside the room there is seating, sensory toys and equipment, sensory tents, ear defenders and baby changing mats. The trust said the room, located at the centre of the Victorian town, is expected to be used by people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), mental and physical health conditions.
It is also to be made available to parents who wish to breastfeed or bottle feed young children.
To develop the Sunflower Room the Trust collaborated with local charity PODS (Parents Opening Doors) for advice and guidance.
The Sunflower Room has been built with funding from The Richardson Brothers Foundation, Edith Murphy Foundation and an anonymous trust, a significant donation from the Noel Sweeney Foundation and a short breaks small capital grant awarded by Telford & Wrekin Council.
Staff from local company MyWorkwear, one of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust’s Corporate Partners, recently spent time decorating the space.
Karen Davies, Interim CEO at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said: “The Sunflower Room will make a big difference to our visitors and will help us achieve our objective of ensuring that everyone feels welcome at our museums.”
Elaine Pearce, Project Manager at PODS, added: “We have been delighted to work with the Trust to create the Sunflower Room, adapted to the needs of people with SEND. The Trust has been able to draw on the insight and experience of our members who regularly visit Blists Hill Victorian Town to create a space that we know they will benefit from.”
The Trust is continuing to raise funds towards the Sunflower Room to enable it to improve the facility and respond to visitor feedback once it is open.
The project has already been selected by Co-op as one of the causes its members can support in the year to October 2025 by voting for the project to receive more funds.
