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Harden | |
---|---|
Suburb | |
Harden Road, Harden, Walsall | |
Location within the West Midlands | |
OS grid reference | SK012011 |
Metropolitan borough | |
Metropolitan county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | WALSALL |
Postcode district | WS3 |
Dialling code | 01922 |
Police | West Midlands |
Fire | West Midlands |
Ambulance | West Midlands |
UK Parliament | |
Harden is an area to the north of Walsall and borders with Bloxwich, Blakenall Heath, Coalpool, Goscote and Rushall. The whole area was part of the Industrial Revolution, with mining and metal processing being the main industries. Although close to the A34 main road from the Stoke (potteries) to Birmingham, it is still served by canals.
Harden is one of the most deprived parts of the Walsall borough and also has one of the highest crime rates, although it has improved since the turn of the 21st century due to a regeneration of the worst parts of the area.
Harden Infant School for 5-7 year olds was opened in 1938 on Goldsmith Road, with the Junior School for 7 to 11 year olds being added a year later. A nursery unit was later added to the infant school, and the infant and junior schools merged in September 1994 to form an 3-11 primary school. The school became Goldsmith Primary Academy in September 2012. [1]
The south of Harden was developed for further council housing in the 1940s and 1950s, when the new W.R. Wheway School was opened for children aged 11 upwards. It became Forest Comprehensive (an 11-16 school) in September 1973, but closed 19 years later. The building has survived as the Hawbush Centre, a local community centre.
In August 1991, Walsall Council announced that more than 30 houses in Shakespeare Crescent would be demolished. Several of these houses had already become empty and been targeted by vandals and arsonists, while some of the houses still occupied were in disrepair, including one house which had been used as a warehouse by a scrap metal dealer who was living in a caravan in the front garden. These houses were demolished during 1992 and 1993.
There was uproar in May 2004 when Bloxwich Housing Trust announced plans to demolish nearly 900 homes across the Blakenall ward, with Harden being included in the plans as well as neighbouring Goscote and Blakenall Heath. Local residents complained that demolition of the estate would break up the established local community which had settled and expanded into younger generations over the previous 70 years, while other residents accused the local authority of deliberately running the area down so they would have to pay as little as possible when buying the privately owned homes under compulsory purchase as part of the redevelopment.
Nearly all of the demolished houses in Harden were on the Poet's Estate, which was built during the 1930s. More than a decade after the first houses there had been demolished, a more extensive demolition project took place between 2005 and 2007. Some homes on the estate which had originally been earmarked for demolition have instead been retained. The regeneration of the estate was almost complete by 2018, featuring both private and social housing. New street names featured in the regeneration, with Shakespeare Crescent being renamed Turnstone Road. Tennyson Road and Wordsworth Road also vanished in favour of new addresses. The area around Goldsmith Road, Masefield Road, Chaucer Road and Dryden Road has survived the redevelopment, while one side of Keats Road was demolished and the housing on the opposite side retained.
The Forest Estate at Harden was developed at around the same time as the Poet's Estate, on the southern opposite side of Harden Road, but more than 200 council houses were added in the 1950s and so was a new secondary modern school, which was known as Forest Comprehensive School for around 20 years until its closure 1992 due to falling pupil numbers. The remaining pupils were transferred to Frank F. Harrison School in nearby Leamore, but the Forest buildings were retained as Hawbush Centre community facility. This section of Harden has suffered less of the problems which affected areas like the Poet's Estate, and the emphasis on improving the housing and environment in more recent times has been on modernisation rather than demolition.
Walsall is a market town and administrative centre of the borough of the same name in the West Midlands, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Birmingham, 7 miles (11 km) east of Wolverhampton and 9 miles (14 km) southwest of Lichfield.
Willenhall is a market town in the Walsall district, in the county of the West Midlands, England, with a population taken at the 2021 Census of 49,587. It is situated between Wolverhampton and Walsall, historically in the county of Staffordshire. It lies upon the River Tame, and is contiguous with both Wolverhampton and parts of South Staffordshire. The M6 motorway at Junction 10 separates it from Walsall.
Bloxwich is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is located between the towns of Walsall, Cannock, Willenhall and Brownhills.
Little London is a residential area of Leeds in England, north of the city centre and Leeds Inner Ring Road. It is so called because in the 19th century it had fashionable housing and interesting architecture comparable to London. In the 1950s and '60s it became largely council housing and now consists of a mixture of high and low-rise flats and housing. The area falls within the Little London and Woodhouse ward of the City of Leeds Council. The area is divided into four estates; Lovell Park, Oatlands, Carlton and the Servias.
Leamore is a suburb of Bloxwich and Walsall in Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands county, England. It is a mix of private and council housing built since the late 19th century. The most significant homes in the area are several multi-storey blocks of council flats, which were built in the 1960s.
Moxley is a village near Darlaston in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands County, England. It was first developed during the early part of the 19th century when a handful of terraced houses were built to accommodate locals working in factories and mines and the area was created in 1845 out of land from Darlaston, Bilston and Wednesbury.
Coseley is a village in the Dudley district, in the county of the West Midlands, England. It is situated three miles north of Dudley itself, on the border with Wolverhampton and Sandwell. It falls within the Tipton and Wednesbury parliamentary constituency.
Blakenall Heath is a suburban village in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands County, England. It straddles the border of Walsall and Bloxwich. Historically the village was a part of Staffordshire. It was originally a rural area between Walsall and Bloxwich with a small amount of private housing as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, but the area began to change dramatically after the end of the Great War.
Beechdale, originally named Gypsy Lane Estate, is a housing estate in Walsall, in the county of the West Midlands, England, that was developed predominantly during the 1950s and 1960s.
Walsall North was a constituency in the West Midlands represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament, created in 1955.
New Invention is a large estate around three miles (4.8 km) north of the town of Willenhall and four miles (6.4 km) east of the city of Wolverhampton in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is halfway between Walsall and Wolverhampton on the busy main A4124 and A462 roads.
Coal Pool is a housing estate in Walsall, West Midlands, England. Most of the homes in area were built by the local council during the 1930s, with a smaller development taking place in the late 1940s which marked the resumption of council house building in the borough after World War II.
The Priory Estate is a housing estate in Dudley, West Midlands, England, which has largely been developed since 1929.
Rushall railway station was a station serving the villages of Blakenall Heath and Rushall in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England. It was on the South Staffordshire Line between Walsall and Lichfield.
Rushall is a historic village in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands county of England. It is centred on the main road between Walsall and Lichfield. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book but has mostly developed since the 1920s. Rushall was historically a part of the county of Staffordshire before it was incorporated with much of the old Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District into the modern-day Walsall district.
Goscote is a residential area of Walsall in the West Midlands of England. The Goscote name dates back several centuries and as recently as the 1920s it was a largely rural area that had survived the recent Industrial Revolution which dramatically altered the face of the region.
Forest Comprehensive School was a secondary school located in Hawbush Road, Harden, Walsall, West Midlands, England.
The Lodge Farm estate is located in the area of Short Heath in the town of Willenhall, which is in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall.
The Walsall Silver Thread Tapestries is a set of eleven artworks in tapestries, designed by the artist Hunt Emerson in conjunction with the various communities of Walsall, England and hand-stitched by local people there in 2016. They depict the people, places, history and wildlife of the towns and districts that, since 1974, have formed the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall.