PAINTINGS of familiar Dudley scenes, including a watercolour by Turner, have gone up at Dudley's new museum ahead of its official opening this weekend.

The pieces on display, which have been specially cleaned and framed for their unveiling, focus on scenes of the town and the wider Black Country, while a changing gallery of works on paper is also set to be unveiled at the end of the month.

The Turner, although relatively small compared to some of the large scale landscapes, is a little treasure waiting to be discovered.

The piece entitled, Dudley Castle from Tipton Canal, is a watercolour, featuring the soft edges of the castle hill in the distance, while smoke billows from factory chimneys and canal workers feature in the foreground in this affectionate picture capturing the history of the area in a range of warm orange and brown hues.

Other pieces include Walter Scott Boyd’s daytime view of Dudley, a pastoral dream of cottages, fields and grazing cattle in the foreground, while in the distance church spires and factory chimneys reach toward industrial tinted skies.

The interior of Holy Trinity Church in Wordsley by Martha Alice Richardson features in a detailed scene with members of the turn of the century congregation sat in high fashion in church pews, heads turned toward their vicar as he delivers a seemingly captivating sermon.

Other scenes include Dudley Market place, Limestone Caverns, Dudley Castle, Red House Glass Cone and feature amongst others, artists including the renowned Edwin Butler Bayliss, Ernest R Fox and David Cox.

The fine art pieces are just one element of the new museum, which includes geology, dinosaurs, glassmaking and sporting and social history.

Visitors will be able to follow a dedicated timeline, taking them through the different periods of the borough’s history.

There are also informal education spaces, a new education room and study areas.

The old museum in St James’s Road closed in December as the council looked to cut costs.

Council bosses say the new museum, based in the Dudley Archives Centre in Tipton Road, boasts better parking and access to the galleries, and is at the heart of the tourism hub at Castle Hill.

Councillor Ian Kettle, Dudley's cabinet member responsible for tourism, said: "The gallery spaces at the new museum are all set up and the team are adding the finishing touches over the next few weeks in readiness for the museum’s opening.

“The new design of the museum, with its timeline approach gives a real flow to the pieces and gives visitors a better understanding of the borough’s history, from the pre-historic to the modern day.

“The fine art selection is a wonderful representation of the history of the borough and the Black Country, representing both the natural world and our proud industrial past.”

Dudley Council’s Fine Art Collection was started in the late 1880s, after the opening of the Art Gallery in 1884. The modern archives building on Tipton Road is now home to pieces from the collection formerly housed at the St James’s Road museum.

The museum will be officially opened by tennis champ Jordanne Whiley at 12noon on Saturday (September 30).

It will be open from 10am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday.