Launch of new digital guide at Ironbridge museum

February half-term saw the launch of a new digital guide to Jackfield Tile Museum.

The guide has been created in partnership with Bloomberg Connects, a free app that contains over 350 guides with bespoke audio, video and text content, for museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens and cultural spaces in countries around the world.

Jackfield Tile Museum is the oldest surviving purpose-built decorative tile factory in Britain. Its collections tell the story of British tile manufacturing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

As well as themed displays of tiles spanning hundreds of years of design history, including Maw tiles made locally and tiles designed by world-famous artists like William Morris and Salvador Dali, visitors can walk through recreations of period interiors made using original tiles, see period offices showing what it was like to work there in the past, and get a glimpse of now unused factory spaces.

Features in the guide on the Bloomberg Connects app include a map of the museum, an introduction to each room, information on specific objects and oral histories from the museum’s archives. Subtitles on videos and audio transcripts help make the app as accessible as possible.

Kyla Hislop, Interpretation Curator, said: “We’re delighted to be able to offer visitors an alternative way to experience Jackfield Tile Museum. Visitors to the Gorge aren’t always aware of the decorative arts collections we have in our museums in the Gorge.

"I am very happy that through the Bloomberg Connects App, we are able to shine some light on this absolute treasure of a museum and hope it will encourage new visitors through the doors.”

The guide is available now online via the Bloomberg Connects app. Visitors can download it in advance of their visit or when they arrive at the museum, using the free on-site WiFi.