Broseley Pipeworks - Clay Tobacco Pipe Museum

Few places are as evocative as Broseley Pipeworks. This abandoned factory once made millions of clay pipes - the kind that people smoked tobacco with - and exported them across the world. Now it sits deserted (except of course for you: the fascinated visitor), as though the workforce have just left a few minutes before you arrived.

Broseley Pipeworks is the only surviving clay tobacco pipe factory complete with its contents anywhere. The 3-storey factory and bottle kiln were in use from 1881 to 1960, after which the factory was abandoned, the contents remaining untouched until the Museum purchased them in 1991.

Quality pipes had by the 18th century become synonymous with the name of the town. A ‘Broseley’ was known to smokers throughout the country and the ‘Churchwarden’ long stemmed pipe became a fashion in the coffee houses of Regency London.

The national importance of preserving not only the contents but the original buildings at Broseley had long been recognised, not least in the considerable financial support for meticulous restoration from the National Museum of Science & Industry, English Heritage, the European Regional Development Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund.

The entire collection of this museum is a Designated Collection of national importance.