Woodside, Dudley

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Woodside
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Woodside
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 townBRIERLEY HILL
Postcode district DY5
Dialling code 01384
Police West Midlands
Fire West Midlands
Ambulance West Midlands
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
West Midlands
52°29′35″N2°06′50″W / 52.493°N 2.114°W / 52.493; -2.114 Coordinates: 52°29′35″N2°06′50″W / 52.493°N 2.114°W / 52.493; -2.114

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.

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.

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.

Notes

    Related Research Articles

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    Kingswinford Human settlement in England

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    Coseley Human settlement in England

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    Wombourne Human settlement in England

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    Wordsley Human settlement in England

    Wordsley is a suburban area of Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and falls into the Stourbridge (DY8) postcode and address area, being just north of the River Stour. Wordsley is part of the Dudley South Parliamentary constituency. It is bordered by open countryside to the west, Kingswinford to the North, Brierley Hill to the East and Stourbridge to the South.

    County Borough of Dudley

    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.

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    Brettell Lane railway station Railway station

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    Blowers Green railway station

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    Old Hill Human settlement in England

    Old Hill is a village in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands, England, situated around 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Halesowen and 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Dudley.

    Dudley, Stourbridge and District Electric Traction Company

    The Dudley, Stourbridge and District Electric Tramways Company operated an electric tramway service between Dudley and Stourbridge and also other lines in the neighbourhood between 1899 and 1930.

    References

    1. "Woodside Library building". Dudley News. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
    2. "Cochrane and Co". Grace's Guide. Retrieved 12 February 2015.