Tug boats honoured during Black Country Living Museum event

The Black Country Living Museum will be celebrating the once common boats and the legacy of the canal network with a weekend of hands-on crafts, activities and fascinating talks.

Tug boats were an essential part of the canal network which marks the West Midlands and a driving force in the industrial revolution. Hundreds of miles of canals running throughout the region allowed factories to grow, fuel to be delivered and people to be fed. From the 1920s onwards, tug boats – with their diesel engines – were used to navigate the canals, pulling large amounts of cargo and even trains of other boats in a way never seen before.

Visitors to the museum are invited to step back in time and see the incredibly rare boats put through their paces, pulling old cargo boats in and out of the canal arm. With a fully loaded train, each tug boat is capable of pulling up to 200 tons.

Tim Shields, curator of industry and transport, said: "Canals and boats are now associated with pleasure and leisure, but they once played a vital role in making the Black Country – and indeed the Midlands – what it is today.

"They were once the life-blood of Victorian Birmingham and Black Country, but fell out of use as they were replaced by trains and lorries. We want to offer visitors the chance to step back in time and experience this long lost way of life, and the culture and art that came with it."

The events will run between Saturday, May 5, and Monday, May 7, between 10am and 5pm.

May 7 also marks the museum's annual May Day celebrations – with traditional may pole dancing and crafting Green Man masks or May Crown.

For more information, or to book tickets, visit www.bclm.com.