This February half term Jackfield Tile Museum is launching a new free visitor guide created in partnership with Bloomberg Connects. The guide, hosted on the Bloomberg Connects app, will enable visitors to experience the museum in new ways.
Bloomberg Connects is a free app created by Bloomberg Philanthropies. It contains over 350 guides, with bespoke audio, video and text content, to museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens and cultural spaces in countries around the world. The aim of the app is to make art and culture accessible to all, by enhancing the experience of in-person visitors to sites and by enabling people around the world to find out about museums in other countries.
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. With this hand-held guide visitors can familiarise themselves with the museum ahead of time, and then personalise their visit by focussing on what interests them most.
“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 Wi-Fi.