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Coordinates: 52°32′24″N 2°07′23″W / 52.540°N 2.123°W
Sedgley is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically a part of Staffordshire,[1] Sedgley was anciently a manor composed of a series of villages: Sedgley, Cotwall End, Upper Gornal, Lower Gornal, Gospel End, Gornal Wood, Woodsetton, Ettingshall, Coseley and Brierley (now called Bradley, not to be confused with Brierley Hill).
[edit] HistoryIn 1897, the villages of Coseley, Ettingshall and Brierley broke away from the Manor of Sedgley to form the Coseley Urban District Council.[2] At the same time, Sedgley Urban District Council was formed to include the rest of the manor, apart from Gospel End - which then became part of Seisdon, although it is still part of the Sedgley DY3 postal district. The entire area was part of the Wolverhampton Parliamentary Borough, created in 1832.[3] Sedgley Urban District Council survived until 1966[4] when the majority of the area became part of Dudley County Borough, which at the same time also took in the urban district councils of Coseley and Brierley Hill. Some parts of Sedgley were placed in South Staffordshire and Wolverhampton, while small sections of Coseley became part of Sandwell and Wolverhampton. Sedgley really developed from a village into a town after World War I when thousands of residential and commercial properties were developed across the area by the council and by private developers.[5] Most of the houses in Sedgley were built in the 1950s and 1960s, in response to the development of Baggeridge Colliery which closed on March 2, 1968.[6] The land was bought by Seisdon Rural District Council and it was granted country park status in 1970. On January 12, 1981, full reclamation of the land commenced.[7] Many pre-1900 buildings in Sedgley survive to this day. They include Queen Victoria Primary School (1897), All Saints' Church (1805)[8] and the early 19th century Court House which was originally the local court of law but is now a public house.[9] Sedgley Beacon Hill is 237 metres (778 ft) above sea level[10] and is the second-highest point in the West Midlands. It is well-known for fossils.[11] The hill was once the site where beacons were lit to warn local people of invaders. Sedgley Beacon Hill provides views across The Black Country, Cannock Chase and Birmingham to the east, and to the Wrekin, Clee Hills and Malvern Hills to the west, and on very clear days it is possible to see the hills of North Staffordshire and Derbyshire, as well as the mountains of both North and South Wales.[12] [edit] Notable events[edit] 2002 EarthquakeThe 2002 earthquake is commonly known as the Dudley earthquake but the epicentre actually occurred in Brick Kiln Lane, Gornal Wood near Himley Road. It measured at 4.7 on the Richter scale and lasted 20 seconds. Tremors were felt some 200 miles away in North Yorkshire, and damage was done to several buildings, but there were no deaths or serious injuries.[13] [edit] Dormston School lottery grantThe Dormston School received a National Lottery grant in July 1996 to contribute towards the cost of building a high quality sports and arts centre on its site. Work began in early 1998, with the facilities opening in March 2000 and being officially opened on 1 December that year. Two years later, the Dudley News criticised the project as a "failure" as few people in the local area were making use of it and a number of people did not even know where it was.[citation needed] [edit] Neighbourhoods[edit] Bull RingThe central area of Sedgley, so named because it was originally the site of bull baiting before the sport was declared illegal in 1835. All signs of the actual ring were destroyed in about 1930 on the construction of a traffic island, but the traffic island is still know as the "Bull Ring".[citation needed] The Bull Ring is now a congested traffic island.[citation needed] It is surrounded by a few public houses. The Court House, built in the early 19th century, was once the town's magistrates' court. These law courts were relocated to a building at the nearby police station until the town's courts were declared redundant in 1988. The Court House is still open, and is part of the Mr Q's pub chain. The Red Lion is approximately the same age as the Court House, and was once the village prison. It is still connected to the Court House by a passageway, though this has long fallen into disuse. The Clifton was built in the 1920s as Sedgley's first cinema, and remained open until 1978, when it closed and was converted into a bingo hall before being taken over by JD Wetherspoon and converted into a public house in 1998. [edit] High Arcal EstateSituated to the south of the town centre. It was developed in phases on part of a public open space between 1991 and 1996, and consists of around 300 Housing Association houses, flats and bungalows. Three-bedroom houses are the most frequent type of property in the area. Some residents on the estate are tenants of their homes, while others have shared ownership or full ownership. High Arcal is the largest post-1970s housing development in Sedgley. [edit] Cotwall EndSituated around the rural Cotwall End Valley. A few pre-1900 buildings still exist, but the face of the area has changed dramatically since the Second World War by the construction of mostly upmarket detached houses in Cotwall End Road and Catholic Lane. Cotwall End Primary School has served the area since 1962. There is also a nature reserve which was previously owned by Dudley MBC and had free admission, but has since been sold to a private landowner and admission fees now have to be paid. A nature reserve was opened in the area by Dudley council in 1969, and for 30 years entry was free until the council introduced entry charges. [edit] Brownswall EstateSituated to the north of Cotwall End Valley, this private housing estate was developed by Coseley-based builders Joseph Webb during the 1950s, consisting of semi-detached and detached houses and bungalows with either two or three bedrooms. It is also served by a recreation ground which includes a large football pitch and until recently a children's play area, but the play area was finally dismantled in 2000 after years of vandalism. The top of the Brownswall Estate near Cotwall End features a row of shops with flats above them. Former Walsall F.C. footballer Chris Marsh was born at 107 Brownswall Road in 1970 and lived there until the early 1990s. His parents still live in the house now. [edit] NorthwaySituated north of Cotwall End towards the border with Wolverhampton. The first houses in this area were built just after the Second World War, but the vast majority of the area consists of private houses built during the 1960s and 1970s. Alder Coppice Primary School was opened on the Northway estate in 1967. Adjoining the estate is Sedgley Hall Park. The centre of the Northway Estate features a shopping area, medical centre, supermarket and public house. [edit] Upper GornalSituated south of Sedgley town centre on the main road towards Dudley. Many older buildings are still standing in the area, though hundreds of private and council houses have been added since 1920. The locally famous Pig on the Wall public house - previously the Bricklayer's Arms - was controversially demolished in 2002 to make way for a McDonald's drive-thru restaurant. The pub was called the Pig on the Wall after a Black Country urban legend regarding a postcard with a picture of a pig peering over a wall and the phrase Who put the pig on the wall at Gornal to see the band go by. Was it Billy the Boy, Jimmy the Go, Clockweight, Billy on Tho'b, The Pokey Mon or Jacko, Tasso, Cogger, Blossom, Jackery? The postcard was the source of a long running 'mystery' in the magazine The Black Country Bugle in the latter part of the 20th Century, in which the phrase had the additional words No, it was Johhny Longstomach. added at the bottom. A tram depot was erected on Tudor Road (just off Dudley Road) in about 1930, just after the immediate area had been developed for council housing, but the nearby tram route was closed in 1939 and the depot converted into an industrial unit. This building was demolished in 2001 and redeveloped for private housing. [edit] Lower GornalSituated about two miles south of Sedgley town centre, around the Five Ways traffic island. The local area takes in Roberts Street Primary School, Redhall Primary School and Ellowes Hall Secondary School; the latter of which was built in 1964 and named after a nearby stately home that was demolished in the same year. It is surrounded by isolated woodland which though once picturesque is now in need of upkeep. The biggest development around Lower Gornal is the Stickley Estate, built before the Second World War and partly expanded in the 1950s and 1960s. Ellowes Hall School is situated on the estate. [edit] Gornal WoodSituated west of and below Lower Gornal, with a busy village centre providing the local area with a wide range of shops and a library. It is within walking distance of Himley Hall stately home; the former residence of the Earl of Dudley now country park and golf course. Himley Hall grounds are used as a show ground for local events. Another Georgian building in Gornal Wood was the 'Straits House', a former mansion which became a public house serving the postwar private housing estate that occupies the surrounding land. Within recent years the building began development for a block of apartments, and is almost finished in construction. A primary school was built on the Straits Estate during the 1960s. The Glynne Arms Public House is known locally as the Crooked House. The pub subsided into a mine shaft running beneath it, and had to have supporting walls erected. This has left the building listing at quite a severe angle. One trick, performed on request in the pub, is an optical illusion where a ball bearing is seen to roll uphill along the back of a bench. The pub used to employ 'guard geese', although these have now gone. When leaving the Glynne Arms, on the opposite side of the Himley Road on the corner of Brick Kiln Lane, can be seen the Old Toll House, that used to charge travellers for the use of the road west. [edit] WoodsettonSituated two miles east of Sedgley town centre, on the main road towards Tipton - although it curiously has a Dudley DY1 postcode. The original parish of Woodsetton takes in Dudley Castle, hence a famous local history question: 'What is the oldest building in Sedgley?' Famous buildings in Woodsetton include Holdens Brewery and the Park Inn public house. Since the 1950s, children in Woodsetton have had a primary school in their local community - Bramford Primary School. One of the most familiar sights in the Black Country was the wooden cobbler's hut on the corner of Sedgley Road and Birmingham New Road, which was set up by cobbler Jim Hughes during the 1950s. He remained at the site until the late 1980s, when he closed his business down and the shed was demolished. Most of the houses in Woodsetton are on the Bramford housing estate. The first houses on the estate were built in the late 1930s, but only a handful of houses had been completed by the time the Second World War began, and the bulk of the estate was developed in the late 1940s and 1950s. Several hundred houses exist on the estate, with a mix of private and council tenure. [edit] Sedgley BeaconSedgley Beacon is one of several Beacon hills in England. From Sedgley Beacon, you can see another Beacon hill - Barr Beacon, some 15 miles away. A council housing estate was built at the foot of Sedgley Beacon in the interwar years and named the Beacon Estate. [edit] Education[edit] Primary schools
[edit] Secondary schools
[edit] Former schools
[edit] All Saints' ChurchAll Saints' Church is a parish church which is situated in the town centre. The first All Saints' Church was built during the 12th century but the current structure was completed in 1805 and has a capacity to seat more than 1,300 people. The organ which was fitted in the church on its completion had originally been in Westminster Abbey. The church is located on the corner of Vicar Street and Dean Street, with the modern vicarage and church hall on the opposite side of Vicar Street. At the time, it was the only parish church in the large but relatively lightly populated parish of Sedgley, but the parish was later divided into five ecclesiastical districts - Sedgley, Lower Gornal, Upper Gornal, Ettingshall and Coseley. Each of these newly-created parishes had their own church. [edit] TransportSedgley has never had a train link, due its location on a series of hills. For the same reason, there are no canals in the town. During the 19th century, however, a small canal known as the Foxyards Canal did pass through the Woodsetton area of the town, linking nearby Mons Hill with the Birmingham Canal. It does, however, have bus links with many neighbouring towns. The town centre has direct bus links with Wolverhampton, Dudley, Coseley, Bilston and Tipton. Until 2006, there was also a link with the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The Lower Gornal area of the town has bus links with Kingswinford, Stourbridge, Brierley Hill, Cradley Heath and Blackheath. Before 2007, there was also a link with Halesowen. Unusually, none of these areas have direct bus links with Sedgley town centre. [edit] Notable residents
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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