Black Country… After Carribee Island: the persistent Irish quarter? 14 Jan 201821 Mar 2018 My PhD research on the Stafford Street area of Wolverhampton finishes, pretty much, in 1877: the date that Parliament approved the Wolverhampton Improvement Scheme which led to the demolition of…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: Anvil Yard, Cradley Heath 14 Dec 20157 Apr 2017 Not far from the Lye Waste lies the ancient manor of Cradley. At the first talk I gave at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in the summer, somebody mentioned to me that I ought…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: Waste Bank, Lye 7 Dec 201521 Dec 2015 The South Staffordshire coalfield defines the Black Country for many purposes, but as a culturally-defined region, its borders are highly porous. Wolverhampton is in or out, depending on who you ask;…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: Gold’s Hill, West Bromwich 23 Nov 201521 Dec 2015 The Black Country is constructed not just upon topography but upon geology. Mines can only be built where there's something to mine; other sorts of works require proximity to those materials; infrastructure is…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: Eel Street, Oldbury 2 Nov 201521 Dec 2015 The Post's next community is one I'm loathe to try and explain in detail. Oldbury was infamous as one of the most polluted towns in the country - so much so that…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: a tour of Willenhall 26 Oct 201521 Dec 2015 It comes as no surprise that our loquacious correspondent was a fan of the eminent art critic, writer and proto-environmentalist John Ruskin, whose prose was classically Victorian (read, excessively wordy). In his Birmingham…
Black Country… “Slums” of the Black Country: Quarry Lane, Bilston 19 Oct 201521 Dec 2015 If there's been some research into Carribee Island in the past, and a little into the Mambles in Dudley, there's almost nothing to be googled on another of the Birmingham Daily Post's…
environment… All the pieces matter 2 Jun 20152 Jun 2015 Disclaimer: I'm no expert on American history, not at all. I'm keen that any theory I want to study be portable though, so I'm attempting here to look at a…
Black Country… The Planner’s Eye 24 Apr 2015 Heath Town Estate, Wolverhampton, by Smileyface on the Skyscraper City website. Click the pic for a link to some truly frightening pictures of the estate at its worst. Multi- and…
Black Country… Taking the waters 21 Jan 201521 Jan 2015 The eighteenth century was, for many of the new middling sorts and gentry, the era of leisure. If you were very well-heeled of course, you had nothing to do but leisure,…
