I spent the perfect autumnal afternoon among the Victorians at Blists Hill
Returning to Blists Hill Victorian Town - a museum I adored as a child - I found its cobbled streets, smoky air and clattering forge just as magical as I remembered.
Next March, the handful of museums currently operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust will be taken over by the National Trust.
The move will mean the trust's 10 museums and 35 listed buildings and scheduled monuments will be open to the conservation charity's five and a half million members.
It's a decision taken in an effort to help boost visitor numbers to the museums, which have struggled to recover after the pandemic.
Announcing the handover - and the £9m grant to make it possible - Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said without the move, people who grew up visiting the museums as children "would not be bringing their children and grandchildren here in future years".
When I moved to Telford as a child, one of the first things I remember was my mum taking me down to the Gorge and picking up a couple of IGMT passports.
Over the next couple of months, we toured the museums and in the following years returned to one in particular over and over - Blists Hill Victorian Town.
