Speech for Visitors to the Museum 1. History of the museum . Water and availability of raw material —made the site suitab

Speech for Visitors to the Museum
    Good afternoon everybody and welcome to Riverside Industrial Village. To start your visit I’m just going to give a brief account of the history of the museum before letting you roam about on your own. I won’t help you long. OK?
    Now from where we’re standing you’ve got a good view of the river over there. And it was because of this fast-flowing water that this site was a natural place for manufacturing works. The water and the availability of raw material in the area, like minerals and iron ore, and also the abundance of local fuels, like coal and firewood, all made this site suitable for industry from a very early time. Water was the main source of power for the early industries and some of the water wheels were first established in the twelfth century, would you believe? At that time, local craftsmen first built an iron forge just behind the village here, on the bend in the river. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the region’s rivers supported more than a hundred and sixty watermills—and many of these continued to operate well into the nineteenth century. But then the steam engine was invented and then the railways came and the centres of industry were able to move away from the rivers and the countryside and into the towns. So, industrial villages like this one became very rare. So that’s the history for you. If you’d like any more information, you can ask me some questions, or you can read further in our excellent guide book.
    Now I’m going to give you a plan of the site and I’d just like to point out where everything is and then you can take a look at everything for yourself. Now we’re standing at the entrance, see it at the bottom, and immediately to our right is the Ticket Office. You won’t need that because you’ve got your group booking, but just past it are the toilets—always good to know where they are. In front of us is the car park, as you can see, and to the left, by the entry gate is the Gift Shop. That’s where you can get copies of the guide, like this one here. Now, beyond the car park all the buildings are arranged in a half circle with a yard in the middle. The big, stone building at the top is the main Workshop. That’s where the furnace is and where all the metal was smelted and the tools were cast, as you’ll be able to see. Now, in the top right-hand corner, that building with bigger windows is the Showroom, where samples of all the tools that were made through the ages are on display. In the top left corner is the Grinding Shop, where the tools were sharpened and finished.
    Right, if anyone wants a guided tour then I’m starting at the Engine Room. If you’d like to come along, this way please, ladies and gentlemen.