Throwback to the age of Queen Victoria for museum's Jubilee celebrations
As the country gears up for marking the Queen's platinum Jubilee one of Shropshire's tourist attractions is celebrating her great great grandmother's historic anniversary.
While the country is wrapped up in jubilee fever, Blists Hill Victorian Town, has been hosting its own unique royal event.
The open-air museum has been stepping back in time to 1897 – for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, which celebrated her reaching 50 years on the throne.
As part of its efforts to get people involved in experiencing history the town has been holding daily jubilee parades where youngsters can get dressed up, grab an instrument and march up and down before saluting the Queen herself on her balcony.
Ross Davidson, the visitor engagement manager for the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, said that the event had seemed the perfect way for the venue to mark this week's celebrations.
He said: "We usually do something around Queen Victoria's birthday which was on March 24 but this was special to tie in with the jubilee.
"The previous record for a jubilee was Queen Victoria, who had her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. She was our longest serving monarch and the whole country got worked up into quite a frenzy at the time.
"We have tried to look at the parallels of how they celebrated and what the world was like then."
Mr Davidson said they were delighted with the way the event – which took a month of preparing, and takes place every day until June 5.
He said: "We are really proud of it, it has been fantastic, it has gone down really well with the visitors.
"We are moving more and more towards a place where people come and experience Victorian life rather than come and learn about it – it is all about getting involved and having a go at stuff."
He added: "People hear 'museum' and think it is all about preserving stuff in glass cases, we are much more about the business of inspiration."
During the Jubilee activities people can also try classic printing to make their own postcard based on the 'Penny Lilac' stamp which was available for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
People are then being invited to write their own message to Queen Elizabeth, and post them in the site's Victorian post box.
They will then be sent to the Queen as part of the Jubilee celebrations.
