Bostin! The one-stop shop for the best of Black Country

The Black Country Hub was launched by Steve Edwards and Gabriella Magin at the Merry Hill centre.

It sells a whole range of Black Country-themed merchandise including clothing, mugs, arts and crafts.

It also promotes tourist attractions, businesses and community groups in the region.

Steve was instrumental in creating celebrations for Black Country Day and was at the helm of the Black Country Festival-organising committee.

He even found time to compile the world’s first Black Country dictionary.

But he has now turned his hand to running the Black Country Hub – which will see a website set up in the coming months.

He said: “The first six months of the Black Country Hub has proved very successful with our promotional leaflet stand being refilled on a daily basis and new artists submitting their work.

“The Black Country Hub has been set up to promote everything great about the Black Country. We promote local tourist attractions, business and community groups as well as local history.

“We believe that using our historic past to restore pride in our region could help shape our future.

“To me the Black Country is the centre of the world, the birthplace of industry and working class communities. I don’t want our communities to continue to fall apart.

“I believe if we can remind people of how important the Black Country is and teach the younger generation about the great history of our region then we can have a bright future.”

The shop sells ‘tay-shirts’, mugs and ‘tay’ towels which promote Black Country ‘spake’, locations and slogans. It is also working with local artists to stock artwork, music and crafts and the world famous Teddy Grays Suck.

Steve added: “As well as merchandise we also have a leaflet stand that promotes tourist attractions, businesses and community groups.

“Merry Hill boasts millions of visitors each year so the Black Country Hub is perfectly located to promote the region. Our television in store also features adverts for Black Country tourist attractions, local music videos and history films.

“We are in the process of setting our website up which will feature a Black Country directory to advertise businesses, events, tourism and community groups in the Black Country.

"We want to be able to link people with ideas up with people who can give the right guidance and advice. There doesn’t seem to be much support for people who want to open a small shop or market stall but we believe that this is the perfect time to make high streets the home for local business again.”