Jackfield Tile Museum
The tile Museum and factory has spectacular galleries and period room settings filled with thousands of sumptuous tiles. Also on offer are workshops where families can decorate their own tiles and visits to the Craven Dunnill factory where intricately designed tiles are made today for palaces, private houses and public spaces across the country.
Five galleries can be found throughout the enormous factory complex, which follow various themes. The gas-lit Trade Showroom, carefully refurbished to its original condition, presents hundreds of tiles made by all of the major British firms. Prior to the production of trade catalogues, this room would have been used by commercial buyers and architects to select ranges of tiles for retailing and decoration.
To ensure that visitors remember tiles were manufactured for practical purposes, not just as objects of beauty, a series of inspirational room settings demonstrate the varied and contrasting locations where Jackfield Tiles would have been found.
Visitors can walk through a replica of London’s Covent Garden underground station, past a completely tiled bar from a public house and into a children’s hospital ward with intricately painted scenes depicting nursery rhymes. Closer to home the galleries also recreate various domestic scenes from the entrance hall of an Edwardian villa, through a grandiose bathroom, to a 1930s front room.
On many days during school holidays you can also join ‘drop-in’ activities and try your hand at decorating ceramic tiles using Victorian techniques. These activities carry an extra charge in addition to the museum admission fee; tiles can also be sent home after firing (p&p extra).