| Sedgley | |
The Clifton public house and 'Bull Ring', in the centre of Sedgley. |
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Sedgley
Sedgley shown within the West Midlands |
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| OS grid reference | SO918936 |
|---|---|
| Metropolitan borough | Dudley |
| Metropolitan county | West Midlands |
| Region | West Midlands |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Dudley |
| Postcode district | DY3 |
| Dialling code | 01902 |
| Police | West Midlands |
| Fire | West Midlands |
| Ambulance | West Midlands |
| EU Parliament | West Midlands |
| UK Parliament | Dudley North |
| List of places: UK • England • West Midlands | |
Sedgley is a town in the West Midlands county of England. Historically a part of Staffordshire,[1] Sedgley was formerly an ancient manor composed of several smaller villages, including Gornal, Gospel End, Woodsetton, Ettingshall, Coseley and Brierley (now called Bradley). In 1966 it was merged into the Dudley County Borough,[2] now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley.
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The place name Sedgley was first mentioned in a 985 charter from King Æthelred to Lady Wulfrūn, when describing the Wolverhampton border.[3] The original Old English place name was 'Secg's lēah' – Secg being a personal name (meaning sword bearing man or warrior[4]) and lēah meaning wood, glade or woodland clearing.[5]
In 1897, the villages of Coseley, Ettingshall and Brierley broke away from the Manor of Sedgley to form the Coseley Urban District Council.[6] At the same time, Sedgley Urban District Council was formed to include the rest of the manor, with the exception of Gospel End (which became a part of the Seisdon Rural District). The entire area was part of the Wolverhampton Parliamentary Borough, created in 1832.[7]
Part of the east of Sedgley was transferred to Dudley as long ago as 1926 to allow for the development of the Priory Estate, where new council houses were built to rehouse families from slums in Dudley town centre.[8] The Sedgley-Dudley border was moved further back in 1954 to include the new Old Park Farm estate in Dudley.
Sedgley Urban District Council survived until 1966,[9] when the majority of the area was merged into the Dudley County Borough along with Coseley and Brierley Hill. The Gospel End area, however, was absorbed into Seisdon (from 1974 South Staffordshire) and the Goldthorn Park estate in the extreme north of the town was absorbed into Wolverhampton, as was the northern half of neighbouring Coseley.[10]
Sedgley expanded rapidly during the early part of the 20th century, in response to the development of the nearby Baggeridge Colliery. After its closure in 1968[11] it was bought by Seisdon Rural District Council, and later granted country park status in 1970. On January 12, 1981, full reclamation of the land commenced.[12]
Many pre-1900 buildings in Sedgley survive to this day. They include Queen Victoria Primary School (1897), All Saints' Church (1805)[13] and the early 19th century Court House, now used as a public house.[14]
The 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 known as the "Bull Ring".
The Bull Ring site has been occupied by a traffic island since about 1950. 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, having been part of the Mr Q's pub chain, however it is now independently owned. 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 opened in 1937 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.
Presto opened a large supermarket on High Holborn in the town centre in 1987, on the site of a former filling station – with a former public car park being incorporated into the supermarket. A year later it was rebranded Safeway, and since 2004 has been owned by Midcounties Co-Operative.
Situated to the south of the town centre. It was developed in phases on part of a public open space between 1992 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.
Situated 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, by which time most of the current surrounding houses had been built. 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.
Situated to the north of Cotwall End Valley, this private housing estate was developed by Coseley-based builders Joseph Webb in the mid to late 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 at one stage also a playground, but the play area was finally dismantled in 2000 after years of vandalism. The recreation ground has since fallen into almost complete disuse among children due to its reputation as a congregation area for older youths drinking alcohol and taking drugs. It has also been occupied by gypsies on at least one occasion.
Demand for properties on the estate is traditionally high (although the local housing market has suffered as a result of the recent recession) but in recent years the estate has been blighted by a number of criminal residents. These include David Harrison, a heroin addict with a catalogue of convictions for theft and burglary, whose most recent conviction came in January 2010 when at the age of 25 he was jailed for five years after being convicted of having sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl as well as supply heroin and cocaine to her, as well as abducting and indecently assaulting her. He had already been subjected to a court order barring him from contact with her amid previous concerns about their relationship, and was also found guilty of breaching this order. He was finally brought to justice after the girl was reported missing and drug addicts at a drug den in Telford later altered police to them amid concern about her age. He had also taken her on shoplifting sprees in order to fund their drug use.[15]
The estate also features shops with flats above them.
Former Walsall F.C. footballer Chris Marsh was born in Wordsley Hospital in 1969 and lived on the Brownswall estate for his Teens and early Twenties.
Situated north of Cotwall End towards the border with Wolverhampton. The development began in the 1950s on land to the north of Gospel End Road, gathered pace in the 1960s and was completed in the 1970s (by which time some 1,000 houses had been built) to join up with Wolverhampton Road.
Alder Coppice Primary School was opened on the Northway estate in 1963.
Adjoining the estate is Sedgley Hall Park, built in the grounds of Sedgley Hall, a 15th century house which was demolished in 1966.
The centre of the Northway Estate features a shopping area, medical centre, supermarket and public house.
Situated east of Sedgley town centre, on the main road towards Tipton – although most of it 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.
The borders of the historic Woodsetton village were altered in 1926 when the rural land including Mons Hill, Wren's Nest hill and Dudley Castle were transferred to Dudley to enable the construction of the Priory Estate by Dudley council over the next decade.[16]
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.
Woodsetton man jailed for prostitute murder
On 21st July 2000, a 44-year-old Woodsetton man called Paul Brumfitt was jailed for life after being convicted of murdering 19-year-old Wolverhampton prostitute Marcella Davies, who died in 1999. He killed her at his terraced house in Sedgley Road, Woodsetton, and burnt her body on a scrapyard he rented in Wolverhampton.
After Brumfitt's trial, it was revealed that he had been convicted at the Old Bailey in 1980 of battering to death an Essex shopkeeper and strangling to death a Danish bus driver.
Sedgley Beacon Hill, one of several Beacon hills in England, is 237 metres (778 ft) above sea level[17] and is the second-highest point in the West Midlands. It is well known for fossils.[18] 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.[19] It is also possible to 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.
On 15th March 1999, Dormston Secondary School in Sedgley town centre made national headlines when more than 40 girls at the school were either sent home or withdrawn from lessons as punishment for wearing short skirts.
Sedgley district, particularly in and around the town centre, had been plagued by graffiti since the mid to late 1990s. The most notable graffiti tag in Sedgley is Toaf - which started in about 2001 and has since spread across the midlands and even as far away as the seaport at Calais in France and Catford in London by 2006. Other notable, but less notorious graffiti tags to have also appeared in and around Sedgley a include Base, Baz, CNF, Tojo. 2RANK and Boris, but this wave was also in decline by 2008.
All 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.
Due to its hilly geography Sedgley has never had a rail or canal link. However, it is served by bus routes to neighbouring areas such as Wolverhampton, Dudley, Bilston and Tipton.
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