This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(October 2012) |
Woodside | |
---|---|
Woodside Park | |
Location within the West Midlands | |
OS grid reference | SO923883 |
Metropolitan borough | |
Metropolitan county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | DUDLEY |
Postcode district | DY2 |
Post town | BRIERLEY HILL |
Postcode district | DY5 |
Dialling code | 01384 |
Police | West Midlands |
Fire | West Midlands |
Ambulance | West Midlands |
UK Parliament | |
Woodside is a residential area of Dudley in the West Midlands of England.
It was originally a separate manor from Dudley in a once rural area south-west of the town in the direction of Brierley Hill, but development along the main Dudley to Stourbridge towards the end of the 19th century saw it merged into Dudley County Borough. In 1890, the Earl of Dudley gave land for the establishment of Woodside Park and building Woodside Library. The Library was opened in 1896 and closed in 2008. [1]
It grew substantially after World War I, with significant private housing developments taking place along Stourbridge Road, as well as council housing in the 1920s and 1930s to rehouse families from slums. These including 220 "Homes for Heroes" which were built in the mid-1920s when council housing development in Dudley was in its early stages.
Since the mid-1980s, the main roads around Woodside have been plagued with congestion due to its close proximity to the Merry Hill Shopping Centre, and the fact that the centre's road links are very much the same to how they existed at the time of its opening.
Woodside was also the location of the Cochrane and Co. Ironworks and Foundry, which was responsible for much of the ironwork used in the construction of The Crystal Palace created for the Great Exhibition of 1851, as well as the production of the early Penfold-design pillar boxes. [2]
Harts Hill railway station, on the South Staffordshire line and the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, opened in 1852, but closed to passengers in 1916 due to World War I and never reopened. The South Staffordshire line remained open to freight traffic until 1993.
The footballer William Ball was born at Woodside in 1886.
Duncan Edwards, who played for Manchester United and England, and died in the Munich air disaster of 1958, was born in a house on Malvern Crescent on 1 October 1936, but grew up two miles away on the Priory Estate.
Dudley is a market town in the West Midlands, England, 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Wolverhampton and 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Birmingham. Historically part of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 79,379. The wider Metropolitan Borough had a population of 312,900. In 2014, the borough council adopted a slogan describing Dudley as the capital of the Black Country, a title by which it had long been informally known.
Tipton is an industrial town in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, in the county of the West Midlands, England. It had a population of 38,777 at the 2011 UK Census. It is located northwest of Birmingham and southeast of Wolverhampton. It is also contiguous with nearby towns of Darlaston, Dudley, Wednesbury and Bilston.
Smethwick is an industrial town in the Sandwell district, in the county of the West Midlands, England. It lies 4 miles (6 km) west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before being placed into West Midlands county.
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. Situated on the River Stour, the town lies around 11 miles west of Birmingham, at the southwestern edge of the Black Country conurbation. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The 2011 UK census recorded the town's population as 63,298.
The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen.
Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Dudley and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a population of 13,935 at the 2011 census. It is best known for glass and steel manufacturing, although the industry has declined considerably since the 1970s. One of the largest factories in the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which closed down and was redeveloped in the 1980s to become the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire.
Kingswinford is a town of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the English West Midlands, situated 5 miles (8 km) west-southwest of central Dudley. In 2011 the area had a population of 25,191, down from 25,808 at the 2001 Census.
Penn is an area divided between the City of Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire district. The population of the Wolverhampton Ward taken at the 2011 census was 12,718. Originally, it was a village in the historic county of Staffordshire.
Amblecote is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It lies immediately north of the historic town of Stourbridge on the southwestern edge of the West Midlands conurbation. Historically, Amblecote was in the parish of Oldswinford, but unlike the rest of the parish it was in Staffordshire, and as such was administered separately. It borders Audnam, Quarry Bank and Wollaston.
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.
Wombourne is a village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is 4 miles (6 km) south-west of Wolverhampton and on the border with the West Midlands County.
Wordsley is a suburban village near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and is north of the River Stour. Wordsley is part of the Kingswinford and South Staffordshire Parliamentary constituency as of 2024. It is bordered by open Staffordshire countryside to the west, Kingswinford to the north, Brierley Hill to the east and Stourbridge to the south.
The County Borough of Dudley was a local government district in the English Midlands from 1865 to 1974. Originally a municipal borough, it became a county borough in 1889, centred on the main town centre of Dudley, along with the suburbs of Netherton and Woodside. Although surrounded by Staffordshire, the borough was associated with Worcestershire for non-administrative purposes, forming an exclave of the county until 1966, when it was transferred to Staffordshire after an expansion of the borough boundaries. Following local government reorganization in 1974, Dudley took in the boroughs of Halesowen and Stourbridge to form the present-day Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the newly formed West Midlands county.
The South Staffordshire line is a partially mothballed and active former mainline that connects Burton-upon-Trent to Lichfield in Staffordshire and formerly then to the West Midlands towns of Walsall, Wednesbury, Dudley and Stourbridge. However, Dudley and Stourbridge were already joined to the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway's (OW&WR) line just north of Dudley Station. It in essence, continued to Stourbridge along with Wednesbury and Walsall.
Dudley railway station was a railway station in Dudley, Worcestershire, England, built where the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line and the South Staffordshire Line diverged to Wolverhampton and Walsall and Lichfield respectively.
Brettell Lane railway station was a station on the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line which served the town of Brierley Hill in England.
Blowers Green railway station was a station on the Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line in the town of Netherton, West Midlands, England.
Wednesbury Town railway station was a station on the South Staffordshire Line.
Old Hill is a village in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England, situated around 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Halesowen and 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Dudley. It is part of the West Midlands conurbation.
Swindon is a village and civil parish located in the district of South Staffordshire, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is 6 miles (6 km) west of Dudley, 2 miles (6 km) northwest of Kingswinford and 2 miles (6 km) southwest of Wombourne. Swindon is located just outside the county and conurbation of the West Midlands. It borders the metropolitan boroughs of Dudley and Wolverhampton to the east and northwest. The parish which includes Swindon and the neighbouring villages of Hinksford and Smestow had a population of 1,279 recorded in the 2021 Census.