Consumer Editor Emma McKinney discovers how the Black Country’s industrial heritage has been given a new lease of life thanks to contemporary crafts inspired by its past.

AS FAR back as the 16th century, the Black Country was an industrial giant – even producing the anchors and chains for the ill-fated Titanic and swords, guns, and cannons for King Charles I’s Army to battle the Civil War.

With its iron foundries and steel mills, stoked by locally mined coal, choking out a thick black fog into its skyline, it’s even thought the Black Country was named after its industrial prowess.

However, the heavy industry which once dominated the Black Country has now largely gone, with its coal mining finally coming to an end in 1968 with the closure of Baggeridge pit near Sedgley.

More economic blows came in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when unemployment soared with the closure of historic large factories including the Round Oak Steel Works at Brierley Hill and the Patent Shaft steel plant at Wednesbury.

Many parts of the Black Country are now struggling for economic survival, with Sandwell being named the 14th most deprived of the UK’s 354 districts, according to the Government’s 2007 Index of Deprivation.

But the region is determined to battle back from the brink and is now hoping a new campaign called Buy Black Country will help not only celebrate its industrial heritage, but also spark a new generation of skilled crafts people.

The initiative has seen five designer-makers being commissioned to use traditional techniques to create contemporary bespoke products – all inspired from collections housed at the Black Country’s various museums and art galleries.

“Although many of the regional industrial trades have been in decline, contemporary makers and manufacturers are still working in small pockets of the Black Country,” explains Natalie Cole, exhibitions officer at Bilston Art Gallery and co-ordinator of Buy Black Country.

“We really wanted to celebrate that and to try and reinvigorate the industry and people’s interest in it.

“The items that have been produced are stunning and we hope that they will inspire a whole new generation of crafts people, as well as injecting a renewed interest into this region’s rich industrial past.”

Chiefs behind the campaign were inundated with more than 100 applications from crafts people across the country, all vying for a slice of the £25,000 funding provided by Renaissance West Midlands.

After whittling down the applicants to a short-list and subjecting them to a rigorous interview process, the team found five top crafts people to create the products.

Manchester-based Sarah Thirlwell was the first on board, spending months studying collections at Walsall Leather Museum to come up with inspiration for her candlesticks.