Walsall leather museum

I looked into things to do in Walsall and this sounded interesting, only trouble was it was closed on Sunday and Monday's the two days that we were there! Not to be discouraged,  it opened at 10am on Tuesdays. Ha, we checked out of the hotel at 10 and made our way there. It is a free museum too so a bonus.

Lots of examples of work and things telling about the tanneries and how things were done. In 1800, there were 90 people working by 1900 there were 2800. In Walsall at the height there were nine tanneries, a Walsall saddle was cheaper than from elsewhere as women did the stitching and were paid only half as much as men.

Beautiful leathers of many different colours and weights.

These bags and others were in a display case, many different styles but these two were actually made by a guy from Canberra.
The Queen has her handbags made by a company from Walsall. At the end we both made a keyring as a keepsake which cost 50p, quite fun to do.