Black Country Towns
Posted by donatoSep 18
Well it has taken me a little time but after a bit of research I think I now finally have a list of all the Black Country towns that I’ll be designing flags and tartans for. This has been a much more difficult task than it appeared at first because the Black Country is comprised of a large mass of places and it can be difficult to distinguish whether some of these places are towns or actually suburbs that are a part of other towns.
Compounding this problem for me is that the further away from Halesowen I looked the less I knew about that particular area. I could differentiate between towns and suburbs reasonably well throughout the Dudley and Sandwell boroughs but Walsall and Wolverhampton boroughs were places I was less sure of.
So I looked up a few places to help me decide. Firstly I looked at the borough websites to see what they considered to be actual towns in their areas. This was very useful to begin with, because it did give me a definite starter list. However I realised that these probably weren’t exhaustive lists owing to their dependence on past civic history – so in Dudley and Sandwell’s cases they only really listed towns that had previously had a council of their own pre-1974.
I then did a few more internet searches and looked into the much more distant past and was able to discover that sometimes a manor had different townships within it. Geography was also another useful tool, being able to look at the spread of towns and it became apparent that some candidates that I had pegged for smaller towns were just so close to a big established town that they would be classed as suburbs of that instead.
Finally I paid a visit to the Black Country museum, having visited it plenty of times before I knew that they had an exhibit that looked at the industry of each town in the area. So I completed my research there and that solidified the conclusions that I already made and helped to increase my knowledge of towns within the Wolverhampton borough especially.
As such I will now give you my list of Black Country towns – though I would ask that if I have omitted any by accident or something on here is a suburb instead then please comment and let me know!
Aldridge
Ambelcote
Bilston
Blackheath
Bloxwich
Bradley
Brierely Hill
Brownhills
Bushbury
Coseley
Cradley
Cradley Heath
Darlaston
Dudley
Ettingshall
Gornal
Great Barr
Halesowen
Heath Town
Kingswinford
Lye
Netherton
Old Hill
Oldbury
Pelsall
Rowley Regis
Rushall
Short Heath
Sedgley
Smethwick
Stourbridge
Streetly
Tettenhall
Tipton
Tividale
Walsall
Walsall Wood
Wednesbury
Wednesfield
West Bromwich
Willenhall
Wolverhampton
Woodsetton
On a final note, I am not asking here what is inside and outside of the Black Country – all I want to know now is are these towns or suburbs. The argument on what is the Black Country is one for another day!
The Black Country is actually named from William Blake and is also known as Blackers Country. It does not include Dudley, as these are Saxons and slake or slackers (slack alice: a name for a saxon’s posterior) and these worked the lime kilns. West Bromwich was mostly rural and little heavy industry was in the black country – most in birmingham. To us, west brom, tipton smethwick and wednesbury are the black country. West Bromwich is a Viking / Dane history, with others being generally Saxon.
I like the flag though, but should include an image of Sleipnir – the thunder hross.
Where are flags purchased from? And a baker boy cap in the tartan?
Hi Tonny,
This is a very interesting theory, though I must confess I’ve not come across it before and haven’t seen it used by any other body/group etc. Do you have any references for this as I would be very interested in researching this view. For example how does this theory account for things like the first Newcomen Engine being built in Dudley? And the battle of Tettenhall where Mercian and Wessex forces defaeted the danes – leading to the names of Wednesbury and Wednesfield?
Cheers
Philip