Woodside is a residential area of Telford, Shropshire, England.
Telford is a large new town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about 13 miles (21 km) east of Shrewsbury, and 30 miles (48 km) north west of Birmingham. With an estimated population of 175,271 in 2017 and around 155,000 in Telford itself, Telford is the largest town in Shropshire, and one of the fastest-growing towns in the United Kingdom.
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands of England, bordering Wales to the west, Cheshire to the north, Staffordshire to the east, and Worcestershire and Herefordshire to the south. Shropshire Council was created in 2009, a unitary authority taking over from the previous county council and five district councils. The borough of Telford and Wrekin has been a separate unitary authority since 1998 but continues to be included in the ceremonial county.
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
In 1963, Dawley New Town (soon to be known as Telford) was designated in the area surrounding towns and villages such as Ironbridge, Dawley and Wellington, to ease the housing problem in the West Midlands conurbation some 20 miles away. The intention was to bring jobs to the area as well as houses to accommodate the thousands of workers being attracted to the town.
Dawley is a small town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. Today, it forms part of the new town of Telford, which was originally, in 1963, going to be named 'Dawley New Town' before it was decided in 1968 to name the town 'Telford', after the engineer and road-builder Thomas Telford.
Ironbridge is a town on the River Severn, at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge, in Shropshire, England. It lies in the civil parish of The Gorge, in the borough of Telford and Wrekin. Ironbridge developed beside, and takes its name from, The Iron Bridge, a 30-metre (100 ft) cast iron bridge that opened in 1781.
Wellington is a market town in the unitary authority of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England and now forms part of the new town of Telford, with which it has gradually become contiguous.
For the less well-off inhabitants of the new town, there needed to be council housing available. The Woodside estate was among the council housing projects first planned in the development of Telford new town. It was developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and is among the largest housing estates in Shropshire.
Woodside is the most deprived part of Telford. The 2001 Census revealed that 37.2% of the area's households did not have access to a car, 18.0% of households were single parent families, unemployment was at 11.3%. However, this was significantly less than the 1991 total of 17.3%, as the economy had been in recession then and was in a much healthier position 10 years later. With the recession that has been affected Britain since mid-2008, however, it is anticipated that the 2011 Census will show a considerably higher level of unemployment.
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses include agriculture, business, and traffic censuses. The United Nations defines the essential features of population and housing censuses as "individual enumeration, universality within a defined territory, simultaneity and defined periodicity", and recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years. United Nations recommendations also cover census topics to be collected, official definitions, classifications and other useful information to co-ordinate international practice.
The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s.
Major regeneration of the estate has taken place in recent years, the most notable phase being the demolition of 350 deck-access flats and maisonettes to make way for a 191-home development by Bellway Homes. Almost all of the remaining houses on the estate have been brought up to modern standards.
The area has a high crime rate compared to the national average and has large amounts of anti-social behaviour. The police are aware of the issue.
In 2005, students from The Abraham Darby Specialist School for the Performing Arts (Now known as Abraham Darby Academy) performed a new piece of theatre called Starting Again written by a local writer, which told the history of the local area over the last 40 years!
History
Woodside came to fruition due to the New Towns Act of 1946, which saw Dawley New Town, now known as Telford New Town, named after the famous Scottish civil engineer, Thomas Telford being developed to cope mainly with the overspill from the West Midlands conurbation.
The land that was chosen for Woodside was previously used for farming and mining purposes, namely Rough Park Farm and Leasowes Farm. Brick Kiln Leasowes Crawstone Pit still part exists today in the form of its spoil mount running along both Ironbridge Road and the William Reynolds School. It was here in 1864 that nine men fell to a tragic death, when a rope lowered to haul the men out, (the youngest being just a child of 12 years) at the end of a busy day, snapped and all souls were lost in the fall. Within the woodland which now covers the spoil mount, the brick pond can still be seen from which water was drawn from the mine.
Situated in south Telford, Woodside was originally built as a council housing estate, being managed by both Telford Development Corporation and Dawley District Council. Modern housing was provided along with shopping and play areas as well as community facilities including a health centre, schools, public houses, a police station and a community centre.
Other facilities were provided at the nearby district of Madeley, which included a leisure centre, shops, a library and banks. Educational facilities were provided with two county primary schools along with a playschool. Secondary education was provided nearby at Madeley, namely the Abraham Darby and Madeley Court schools. Roman Catholic education facilities were at St Marys’ primary, Madeley and Blessed Robert Johnson secondary at Wellington.
Employment was a main factor of people re-locating to Woodside, with plentiful employment being made available at the newly built Tweedale and Halesfield industrial estates nearby.
Public transport was provided by the Midland Red bus company. They offered residents local services to other areas of the new town, along with direct ser-vices to out of town places such as Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
Woodside was unique in the way it was built and also the residents in which it had attracted. The estate was built using the Radburn design, thus separating the motor car from the footpaths. This gave a friendlier feel to the estate and helped people move about more freely, both enjoying the freedom of the landscaped areas throughout and shopping without the worry of the car.
It wasn’t just the West Midlands in which the residents had left behind people came far and wide from all over England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland along with a handful from even more distant shores. Each resident had a skill, trade or profession which they could offer to help with the development of the estate and the new town.
K.McLean 05/2014
Telford and Wrekin is a unitary district with borough status in the West Midlands region of England. The district was created in 1974 as The Wrekin, then a non-metropolitan district of Shropshire. In 1998 the district became a unitary authority and was renamed Telford and Wrekin. It remains part of the Shropshire ceremonial county and shares institutions such as the Fire and Rescue Service and Community Health with the rest of Shropshire.
Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge.
Blists Hill Victorian Town is an open-air museum built on a former industrial complex located in the Madeley area of Telford, Shropshire, England. The museum attempts to recreate the sights, sounds and smells of a Victorian Shropshire town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is one of ten museums operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
Broseley is a small English town in Shropshire, with a population of 4,929 at the 2011 Census. The River Severn flows to its north and east. The first iron bridge in the world was built in 1779 across the Severn, linking Broseley with Coalbrookdale and Madeley. This was part of the early industrial development in the Ironbridge Gorge, which is now part of a World Heritage Site.
The Telford Steam Railway (TSR) is a heritage railway located at Horsehay, Telford in Shropshire, England, formed in 1976.
Telford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since May 2015 by Lucy Allan, a Conservative, who defeated David Wright, the former Labour Party MP for the seat.
The Wrekin is a constituency in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, located in the county of Shropshire in the West Midlands of England. It has existed continuously since its creation by the Representation of the People Act 1918, and is named after a prominent landmark hill in the area, The Wrekin. The constituency has periodically swung back and forth between the Labour and Conservative parties since the 1920s, and has been held since 2005 by a Conservative MP, Mark Pritchard.
Madeley is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, now part of the new town of Telford. The parish had a population of 17,935 at the 2001 census.
Abraham Darby III was an English ironmaster and Quaker. He was the third man of that name in several generations of an English Quaker family that played a pivotal role in the Industrial Revolution.
The Wolverhampton–Shrewsbury line is the railway line from Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury via Wellington; it was originally built by the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway. The line is double track throughout, with rarely used relief sidings at Cosford and 4 tracks through Wellington station.
The Iron Bridge is a bridge that crosses the River Severn in Shropshire, England. Opened in 1781, it was the first major bridge in the world to be made of cast iron, and was greatly celebrated after construction owing to its use of the new material.
Horsehay is a village on the western outskirts of Dawley, which, along with several other towns and villages, now forms part of the new town of Telford in Shropshire, England. Horsehay lies in the Dawley Hamlets parish, and on the northern edge of the Ironbridge Gorge area.
Stirchley is a component settlement of the new town of Telford, in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. Stirchley lies just south-east of the town centre, and shares a parish council with neighbouring Brookside, which together have a population of 10,533 according to the 2001 census data It is close to Dawley and Malinslee and located next to the southern side of Telford town park. Although formerly a farming parish, it was incorporated into the Telford New Town in the 1970s. There are some important heritage sites in the parish, notably St James Church, Stirchley Hall, Stirchley Grange and the Stirchley Chimney, now a local landmark. A number of Stirchley's heritage sites are waypoints on the South Telford Heritage Trail. The former school was removed brick-by-brick and rebuilt at the nearby Blists Hill Victorian Town museum in 1993.
Haberdashers' Abraham Darby in Telford, Shropshire, England, is a comprehensive school on Ironbridge Road in Madeley which was founded in 1937. It is named after Abraham Darby III and is situated one mile from the Iron Bridge which he built in 1779. In September 2008 the school was converted to an academy through a link to Haberdashers' Adams, and was accepted by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The headteacher is Lee Hadley.
Abraham Darby IV was an English ironmaster.
Brookside is a housing estate and borough and parish council ward in Telford, Shropshire, England. The original settlement of Brookside is a Radburn estate built in the early 1970s as part of the development of Telford New Town and is entirely within the confines of Brookside Avenue, a 1.7 mile ring road. Significant development has taken place around the outside of Brookside Avenue since the estate was built, the majority of which is part of Stirchley Park but falls within the Brookside ward for both Telford and Wrekin Council and Stirchley and Brookside Parish Council.
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