Museum to bring bandstand to life

The bandstand in Brinton Park, Kidderminster, has been the venue for many a Sunday afternoon concert.

Its distinctive style is now the inspiration for a similar structure which could be built at the Black Country Living Museum.

The Express & star revealed yesterday plans to create a two-acre park at the attraction as part of an ambitious £10 million expansion of the site.

It is hoped a bandstand will form the centrepiece of the 1930s design but the museum needs the cash.

Chief executive Ian Walden said: "We are looking to build a bandstand something like the one in Brinton Park that reflects the design style of the 1930s.

"We think we could do a similar design to the Tecton buildings at Dudley Zoo so we can capture the architecture of Castle Hill during that period.

"At this stage we don't have a costing but it will run into tens of thousands of pounds."

Work on the park, modelled on public spaces dating from that era such as Silver Jubilee Park in Coseley, could start this month and be open to visitors by the summer.

It will be called Folkes's Park, after the Lye firm which has put up a large slice of the funding and will include period landscaping.

There will also be a sculpture trail to include anchors and drop hammers and other tools associated with the Black Country's manufacturing past.

The park is being landscaped next to the Worker's Institute which has been dismantled from its original location in Cradley Heath and reconstructed at the museum.

Historically the Institute was situated next to a park named after Mary Macarthur who led the 1910 Cradley Heath women chainmaker's strike.

The ambitious expansion plan focuses on the building of a new High Street set in the 1930s and includes a butcher's, a milliner's, a wireless shop, and Hobbs' - the new fish and chip shop - opposite the existing canal-side village.