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Welcome to the
Black Country Society
Established in 1967 to Support, Record, Preserve & Celebrate the distinct
Character and Nature of the West Midlands area known since 1846 as 'The Black Country"
Est. 1967
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BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM
Watch the podcasts presented by Simon Briercliffe to find out different aspects of
living in the Black Country in the 1940's, 50's and 60's.
Choose the podcasts below:
History West Midlands | How the Black Country changed the British home (historywm.com)
History West Midlands | Post-war prosperity and racial tension (historywm.com)
History West Midlands | The Black Country – The golden years 1945-1968 (historywm.com)
About Dudley Central Civic Restaurant
Purpose built in 1948 the Civic Restaurant in Dudley was part of a government led initiative to change popular wartime British restaurants into civic restaurants. These aimed to provide affordable and nutritious food without diners needing to use their precious personal rations and was particularly important in the Black Country as many companies were too small to run canteens for their workers. Prior to this, most British Restaurants had been located in makeshift venues like church halls, town halls and school buildings. Dudley’s were in church halls at St John’s Kate’s Hill, King Street Methodist, and St Christopher’s, on the Wren’s Nest estate. But a handful of councils looked at Civic Restaurants as an opportunity to build brand new, modern and efficient restaurants – Dudley was one of this pioneering group.
The Civic Restaurant, built by the bus station to a modern pre-cast concrete design, was designed for mass dining, serving midday dinners, coffees, teas and evening meals for to up to 200 people at a time. The restaurant featured an open plan kitchen, a mural designed by local students from Dudley Technical College, coffee room and a terrace. In later years it was also hired out for private functions, dances and wedding receptions. Dudley’s Central Civic Restaurant was a great success to begin with, but as more prosperous times came to the Black Country, diners began to look elsewhere for less basic cuisine, and the restaurant began to struggle. Despite a revamp in 1954 as the Ednam Restaurant, with new menus, jukeboxes, and carpets, by 1956 it had become unprofitable, and closed later that year. The building was then used for several different council purposes following its closure, most notably as the home of the Black Country Museum Development Office from 1975-1984. The building was eventually demolished to make way for Dudley’s new bus station with many fixtures and fittings sold at public auction.
Do you have memories of dining or attending a function in the restaurant in the 1940s to 1950s? Did you or anyone in your family eat, join in a celebration or work in the Civic restaurant? Can you remember the food, the decoration or even the mural? Please get in touch with us by emailing collections@bclm.com or by calling 0121 557 9643. For more information about BCLM: Forging Ahead, please visitwww.bclm.com/forgingahead. To keep up-to-date with the project please visit the Museum website (www.bclm.com/forgingahead), follow the Museum on twitter @BCLivingMuseum or like the Facebook page, ‘The Black Country Living Museum’.
