IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Birches Rise, WILLENHALL, WV13 2DB

Seen from Somerford Place.

The upstairs accommodation comprised three bedrooms. This one is dressed in the early twentieth century style when the Hodson family moved their lockmaking business to New Road.

The smaller lock manufacturer's such as Hodsons employed up to twenty men in small workshops in yards at the back of their houses. This contrasts with the larger maufacturer's in the town such as Yale or Legge or Chubb's in Wednesfield who opened larger more mechanised premises. Sadly all of the industry met the same fate as the industry moved to the low wage production areas in China and India.

The house on New Road contained the family accommodation with the front room used as a drapers shop run by the Hodson sisters. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. The rear building contained a kitchen, scullery and finishing shop for the family lock making business with an office above. The collection of buildings dates from 1840 and is Grade 2 Listed.

The ground floor houses a forge, stamping machine and workbenches. The first floor has workbenches for assembly of padlocks. Willenhall was the major centre for lock production in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Hodson family business started in 1793 and moved to these premises in New Road in 1903. The buildings date from 1840 and were originally used by a bolt manufacturer.

Dedicated to the industry that brought prosperity to the town.

The parlour is decorated in the style from the early twentieth century when the Hodson family moved their lockmaking business to these premises on New Road.

An unusual public opening for the threatened museum. The museum is an 1840s house and workshop used from the early 20th century by the Hodson family for the manufacture of padlocks. The daughters of the family had a drapery shop in the front parlour. The family lived in the house, sharing their scullery with the japanning finishing process. A trust purchased the house in 1983 and opened the Lock Museum in 1987. This operated until transferred to the Black Country Living Museum in 2005 for a nominal sum. In 2008 problems with low visitor numbers coupled with withdrawal of sponsorship by the lock industry and Walsall Council meant that the site was unviable and only pre-arranged parties were catered for. Plans to remove the workshop to the Black Country Living Museum were blocked by the planners. The BCLM announced that they had cancelled the plan in June 2010 due to budgetary constraints. This leaves the status of the Grade 2 listed building and contents with an uncertain future. The preferred option for it to remain unchanged is unviable but if it is sold on what would happen to the workshops and contents? Should we really be worried about the loss of a reminder of an industry that has departed these shores over the last twenty or thirty years in search of a cheap unskilled workforce in India and China? Visiting the museum today it was interesting to note how many of the visitors had worked in the lock making industry.

At its junction with Pinson Road; seen from the east end of Somerford Place.

Tin boxes and drawers containing components and keys are scattered around the workshop at the museum. Willenhall was the centre of the lockmaking industry.