Tourism chairman launches "The Heart of England Route of Industrial Heritage"

“The Heart of England Route of Industrial Heritage” was launched on the 25th July by Brian Summers, Chairman of Tourism West Midlands, with Steve Miller, Chief Executive, Ironbridge Gorge Museum and David Buckley, ERIH UK Co-ordinator at Thinktank, Birmingham.

Representatives from the ERIH sites that are part of the route joined colleagues from the Tourist Information Centres and guests as they celebrated the launch of the regional route, that will form a significant part of the ERIH project in the UK.

“We haven’t opened any new facilities today but we have seen the recognition of the West Midlands region in a European Heritage context with the launch of  “The Heart of England Route of Industrial Heritage”. This has given us the chance to show the world the unique heritage of our region and our impact on the world at large”, said Brian Summers, Chairman of Tourism West Midlands.

The Heart of England Route of Industrial Heritage >>

Thinktank’s own silversmith, Bob Lawrence, demonstrated some of the skills that made Birmingham famous and Guy Rowlands, a ‘foundryman’ from the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust was the M.C..

The new route highlights some of the major attractions and sites in the Heart of England (West Midlands) that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution in the UK and Europe. It is part of a European-funded programme, the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH), in which the UK is partnered by Germany, Holland and Belgium and celebrates its unique contribution to the industrialisation that changed our world in the 18th and 19th centuries.