104-475: Quinton is a suburb and ward of Birmingham , in the county of the West Midlands , England, 5 miles (8 km) west of the city centre. Formerly part of Halesowen parish, Quinton became part of Birmingham in 1909. Quinton was a village and the surrounding area was farmland until the 1930s when the first housing estates were developed. Most of the farmland had been built on by 1980 but some countryside remains in
208-650: A newsagents on Court Oak Road was hit. Three houses in Wolverhampton Road South were ruined and several more damaged in the same raid. Overall, Quinton was not greatly affected by bombing compared to some areas of Birmingham and the Black Country . Quinton is covered by the B32 postal district . The northern boundary of Quinton is the southern side of the A456/A458 Hagley Road West between Balden Road and
312-410: A First World War Zeppelin flew over Quinton on 31 January 1916, its bombing target was Halesowen and no bombs were dropped on the parish. Quinton remained in character a village rather than a suburb until large-scale private housing development of the 1930s. Factory developments were not planned for the area because of objections by residents of Edgbaston to the possibility of fumes being blown over by
416-477: A Friday evening concert. The Early English styled Christ Church is of red sandstone and was built at a cost of £2,500 in 1840. The "Old Burial Ground" at the end of the church drive, next to Quinton Church Primary School was opened in 1898. Half of the site was for members of the Church of England and half for other residents of the parish; each administered separately. In the 1950s the grounds became overgrown and by
520-528: A castle. In Wales, the term electoral ward is used for elections to principal councils ( county councils or county borough councils ). These were formally called electoral divisions . Communities in Wales (the equivalent to the civil parish in England) are sometimes divided into wards for elections to the community council. All of Scotland is divided into over 300 wards for local government elections. Using
624-405: A few smoky sparrows; and for miles on miles a black waste spreads around, where furnaces continually smoke, steam engines thud and hiss, and long chains clank, while blind gin horses walk their doleful round. From time to time you pass a cluster of deserted roofless cottages of dingiest brick, half swallowed up in sinking pits or inclining to every point of the compass, while the timbers point up like
728-826: A league". An alternative theory for the meaning of the name is proposed as having been caused by the darkening of the local soil due to the outcropping coal and the seam near the surface. It was however the American diplomat and travel writer Elihu Burritt who brought the term "the Black Country" into widespread common usage with the third, longest and most important of the travel books he wrote about Britain for American readers, his 1868 work Walks in The Black Country and its Green Borderland . Burritt had been appointed United States consul in Birmingham by Abraham Lincoln in 1864,
832-587: A material suitable for making the pots in which glass was melted. In 1642 at the start of the Civil War , Charles I failed to capture the two arsenals of Portsmouth and Hull, which although in cities loyal to Parliament were located in counties loyal to him. As he had failed to capture the arsenals, Charles did not possess any supply of swords, pikes, guns, or shot; all these the Black Country could and did provide. From Stourbridge came shot, from Dudley cannon. Numerous small forges which then existed on every brook in
936-405: A perpetual twilight reigns during the day, and during the night fires on all sides light up the dark landscape with a fiery glow. The pleasant green of pastures is almost unknown, the streams, in which no fishes swim, are black and unwholesome; the natural dead flat is often broken by high hills of cinders and spoil from the mines; the few trees are stunted and blasted; no birds are to be seen, except
1040-581: A residential home for elderly men, known as Quinton Hall. The hall was demolished in 1978. Quinton with its population of 1,100 and area of 838 acres (339 ha) was incorporated into the county borough of Birmingham, in Warwickshire , on 9 November 1909. Quinton residents voted by 180 out of 224 to join with Birmingham rather than remain in Halesowen Rural District though it remained a parish until 1912. The main benefit for Quinton Parish Council
1144-479: A role that required him to report regularly on "facts bearing upon the productive capacities, industrial character and natural resources of communities embraced in their Consulate Districts" and as a result travelled widely from his home in Harborne , largely on foot, to explore the local area. Burritt's association with Birmingham dated back 20 years and he was highly sympathetic to the industrial and political culture of
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#17328444445291248-488: A steeply pitched roof. The gabled west front is surmounted by an octagonal, louvred, copper-roofed bell turret. The altar by architect, W H Bidlake came from St Stephen's, Newtown Row . Quinton Methodist Church on Ridgeway Avenue just over the border in Halesowen was built by William Jackson of Langley Green to a design by Selby Clewer and opened on 3 February 1968. The building replaced one on College Road opened in 1888 that
1352-705: A wider area than its common modern usage, however, devoting the first third of the book to Birmingham, which he described as "the capital, manufacturing centre, and growth of the Black Country", and writing "plant, in imagination, one foot of your compass at the Town Hall in Birmingham, and with the other sweep a circle of twenty miles [30 km] radius, and you will have, 'the Black Country" (this area includes Coventry , Kidderminster and Lichfield ). A few Black Country places such as Wolverhampton, Bilston and Wednesfield are mentioned in Anglo-Saxon charters and chronicles and
1456-462: Is 226 metres (741 ft) above sea level at the original village centre on High Street. The land drops away to the south and east to a low of 154 metres (505 ft) at the Bourn Brook by West Boulevard. The top of the spire of the ( Church of England ) Christ Church is the highest point of any building in Birmingham. The escarpment a little to the west forms part of the national watershed, dividing
1560-672: Is car parking off Highfield Lane. Transport infrastructure The 1.25 miles (2 km) long A456 Quinton Expressway links Quinton to the M5 motorway at junction 3 via a short underpass. The A456 continues as Hagley Road West towards Birmingham city centre. The A458 to Halesowen via Mucklow Hill begins at the Quinton traffic island. A short section of the A4123 , enters Quinton as Wolverhampton Road South and bears east along Court Oak Road towards Harborne. West Boulevard used to terminate at Quinton Road West but
1664-608: Is currently represented on Birmingham City Council by Labour Co-op Councillors Sam Forsyth & Lauren Rainbow. The ward of Quinton forms part of Birmingham Edgbaston constituency along with Bartley Green , Edgbaston , Harborne and North Edgbaston, which has been represented by Labour Co-operative MP Preet Gill since 2017 . Quinton has one secondary school, Four Dwellings Academy and four primary schools; Quinton Church Primary, World's End Junior, Woodhouse Primary Academy and Four Dwellings Primary Academy. Quinton Church Primary School's roots go back to 1846, six years after
1768-1016: Is divided into wards, which are ancient and very long-standing sub-divisions of the city. The Council of the Isles of Scilly is also a sui generis unitary authority, and has five wards, each returning either 1 or (in the case of St Mary's ) 12 councillors to the Council of the Isles of Scilly. Civil parishes in England are sometimes divided into wards for elections to the parish council (or town / city council ). They need not bear any relation to wards or electoral divisions at district level, but often do. The four most northerly ancient counties of England – Cumberland , Westmorland , County Durham and Northumberland – were historically divided into administrative units called wards instead of hundreds or wapentakes , as in other counties. Wards were areas originally organised for military purposes, each centred on
1872-729: Is on Winchfield Drive, Harborne. Quinton Evangelical Free Church on World's End Lane and Ridgacre Road has served the local community since 1944. The Christadelphian Hall on Ridgacre Road dates from 1938. National Express West Midlands buses serve the area. Buses from Birmingham city centre to Stourbridge (service no. 9), Wolverhampton (X8) and Gornal Wood (X10) all stop along Hagley Road West. Service no. 24 Birmingham – Woodgate Valley North stops on Court Oak Road, Ridgacre Road, Ridgacre Lane, Highfield Lane, Simmons Drive and Quinton Road West. Services also run to Dudley and Q.E. Hospital (service no. 19), West Bromwich (54) and Longbridge (55 – operated by Kevs Cars and Coaches). Service 55
1976-815: Is owned and maintained by Birmingham City Council. The office and Registrar’s house were built in 1936. The Reel Cinema, again just over the border in Halesowen, opened in 1939 as the Danilo. It was renamed the Essoldo in 1954 and upon becoming multi-screened in 1973 was known as the Quinton Classic. Quinton Art Festival was established in 2001 and takes place annually at the Methodist Church hall over three days in May. There are up to 300 paintings and drawings on display along with craft stalls, flower displays and art demonstrations, plus
2080-404: Is the earliest documented working steam engine. An important milestone in the establishment of Black Country industry came when John Wilkinson set up an iron works at Bradley near Bilston. In 1757 he started making iron there by coke-smelting rather than using charcoal. His example was followed by others and iron making spread rapidly across the Black Country. Another important development of
2184-504: Is the fourth most deprived district in the West Midlands, and the 28th most deprived nationally. Walsall is the fifth most deprived district in the West Midlands region, and the 45th most deprived in the country. Dudley fares better, but still has pockets of deprivation. Overall, Dudley is the 100th most deprived district of the UK, but the second most affluent of the seven metropolitan districts of
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#17328444445292288-590: The Bentley Fault , to the north of which lies the Cannock Chase Coalfield . Around the exposed coalfield, separated by geological faults, lies a concealed coalfield where the coal lies at much greater depth. A mine was sunk between 1870 and 1874 over the eastern boundary of the then known coal field in Smethwick and coal was discovered at a depth of over 400 yards. In the last decade of the 19th century, coal
2392-469: The Isle of Wight and Shropshire Councils ) instead use the term electoral division . In non-metropolitan county areas with both wards (used for district council elections) and electoral divisions (used for county council elections), the boundaries of the two types of divisions may sometimes not coincide, but more often the county electoral divisions will be made up of one or more complete wards. In urban areas,
2496-719: The Local Government (Boundaries) (NI) Order 1972 (No. 131) and DEAs were first created by the Local Government (District Electoral Areas) Regulations 1973 (No.94) Black Country The Black Country is an area of England's West Midlands . It is mainly urban, covering most of the Dudley and Sandwell metropolitan boroughs , with the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton sometimes included. The towns of Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be
2600-557: The M5 motorway ; the northern side is Brandhall in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell . The M5 forms the western boundary down to junction 3, and separates Quinton from the town of Halesowen in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley . The Bourn Brook in Woodgate Valley Country Park is the southern boundary and divides Quinton from Woodgate, South Woodgate and Bartley Green . Balden Road, Tennal Lane and West Boulevard (B4121) form
2704-702: The Merry Hill Shopping Centre and Waterfront commercial and leisure complex, while the Patent Shaft site was developed as an industrial estate. Unemployment in Brierley Hill peaked at more than 25% – around double the national average at the time – during the first half of the 1980s following the closure of Round Oak Steel Works, giving it one of the worst unemployment rates of any town in Britain. The Merry Hill development between 1985 and 1990 managed to reduce
2808-456: The Patent Shaft steel plant at Wednesbury. Unemployment rose drastically across the country during this period as a result of Conservative Prime Minister Thatcher's economic policies; later, in an implicit acknowledgement of the social problems this had caused, these areas were designated as Enterprise Zones, and some redevelopment occurred. Round Oak and the surrounding farmland was developed as
2912-538: The Staffordshire Advertiser . He describes going into the "black country" of Staffordshire – Wolverhampton, Bilston and Tipton. In published literature, the first reference dates from 1846 and occurs in the novel Colton Green: A Tale of the Black Country by the Reverend William Gresley , who was then a prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral . Gresley's opening paragraph starts "On the border of
3016-456: The Thick Coal , Heathen Coal , Stinking Coal , Bottom Coal and Singing Coal seams. Other seams also exist. The Thick Coal seam was also known as the "Thirty Foot" or "Ten Yard" seam and is made up of a number of beds that have come together to form one thick seam. Interspersed with the coal seams are deposits of iron ore and fireclay . The Black Country coal field is bounded on the north by
3120-637: The single transferable vote , most wards elect either three or four councillors. Starting from the 2022 Scottish local elections , the Scottish Elections (Reform) Act 2020 , allows electoral wards to have between one and five councillors. Districts in Northern Ireland are divided into electoral areas, with each electing between five and seven councillors by single transferable vote. These are themselves sub-divided into wards, but these wards have no official function. Post-1973 wards were first created by
3224-770: The 1820s, and the Lye holloware industry is even more recent. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, coal and limestone were worked only on a modest scale for local consumption, but during the Industrial Revolution by the opening of canals, such as the Birmingham Canal Navigations , Stourbridge Canal and the Dudley Canal (the Dudley Canal Line No 1 and the Dudley Tunnel ) opened up the mineral wealth of
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3328-399: The 1840s, when called The Quinton , mention was made of two small coal mines in the area and that the inhabitants were employed in nail manufacturing. It formed, with most of Halesowen parish, a detached part of Shropshire , until moving to Worcestershire in 1844 . In 1866 Ridgacre became a separate civil parish , in 1894 the parish was renamed from "Ridgacre" to "Quinton". On 1 April 1912
3432-528: The 18th century of shallow coal mines in Wolverhampton, however. Others have included areas slightly outside the coal field which were associated with heavy industry . Bilston-born Samuel Griffiths, in his 1876 Griffiths Guide to the Iron Trade of Great Britain , stated "The Black Country commences at Wolverhampton, extends a distance of sixteen miles to Stourbridge, eight miles to West Bromwich, penetrating
3536-601: The 18th century was the construction of canals to link the Black Country mines industries to the rest of the country. Between 1768 and 1772 a canal was constructed by James Brindley starting in Birmingham through the heart of the Black Country and eventually leading to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. In the middle of the 18th century, Bilston became well known for the craft of enamelling . Items produced included decorative containers such as patch-boxes, snuff boxes and bonbonnieres . The iron industry grew during
3640-524: The 1980s were in effect closed. Since 2006 the area has been restored and maintained. St Boniface , Church of England on Quinton Road West, consecrated in 1959, was designed by the architectural partnership of Bromilow, While & Smeaton who also designed St John the Baptist's Church, Longbridge . It is within the Diocese of Birmingham. The church building of brick has a clerestory with dormer windows as part of
3744-449: The 19th century, peaking around 1850–1860. In 1863, there were 200 blast furnaces in the Black Country, of which 110 were in blast. Two years later it was recorded that there were 2,116 puddling furnaces, which converted pig-iron into wrought iron , in the Black Country. In 1864 the first Black Country plant capable of producing mild steel by the Bessemer process was constructed at
3848-414: The 300th anniversary of the erection of the first Newcomen atmospheric engine . Following this it was agreed by the museum and Black Country society for 14 July to be recognised as Black Country Day to celebrate the area's role in the Industrial Revolution. The day was marked by Department for Communities and Local Government in 2013 and following calls to do more in 2014 more events were planned around
3952-555: The Black Country changed from one of the most prosperous industrial working-class regions in the country, to one of the most deprived. As the heavy industry that had named the region faded away, in the 1970s a museum, called the Black Country Living Museum started to take shape on derelict land near to Dudley. Today this museum demonstrates Black Country crafts and industry from days gone by and includes many original buildings which have been transported and reconstructed at
4056-635: The Black Country form part of the Birmingham metropolitan economy , the second largest in the UK. In 2011, the government announced the creation of the Black Country Enterprise Zone. The zone includes 5 sites in Wolverhampton and 14 in Darlaston . The i54 business park in Wolverhampton is the largest of the 19 sites; its tenants include Jaguar Land Rover . The largest site in Darlaston is that of
4160-561: The Black Country is no longer black. The area still maintains some manufacturing, but on a much smaller scale than historically. Chainmaking is still a viable industry in the Cradley Heath area where the majority of the chain for the Ministry of Defence and the Admiralty fleet is made in modern factories. Much but not all of the area now suffers from high unemployment and parts of it are amongst
4264-524: The Black Country's borders as the area on the thirty foot coal seam, regardless the depth of the seam. This definition includes West Bromwich and Oldbury, which had many deep pits, and Smethwick. The thick coal that underlies Smethwick was not mined until the 1870s and Smethwick has retained more Victorian character than most West Midland areas. Sandwell Park Colliery's pit was located in Smethwick and had 'thick coal' as shown in written accounts from 1878 and coal
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4368-573: The M5 motorway and the A456 Quinton Expressway. Access from Woodgate Valley Country Park is via a pelican crossing on the Expressway. 18 acres (7 ha) of the meadows were lost in the early 2000s following the construction of Quinton Business Park. Quinton Recreation Ground next to the M5 is accessed from Meadow Road and Powell Avenue. Highfield Farm Recreation Ground has a children's play area, multi-sports pitch and exercise equipment. There
4472-581: The Midlands Employers' Federation, a body founded by Dudley Docker , the Asquith Government's armaments programme was jeopardised, especially its procurement of naval equipment and other industrial essentials such as steel tubing, nuts and bolts, destroyer parts, etc. This was of national significance at a time when Britain and Germany were engaged in the Anglo-German naval arms race that preceded
4576-1077: The Old Park Works in Wednesbury . In 1882, another Bessemer-style steel works was constructed at Spring Vale in Bilston by the Staffordshire Steel and Ingot Iron Company, a development followed by the construction of an open-hearth steelworks at the Round Oak works of the Earl of Dudley in Brierley Hill , which produced its first steel in 1894. By the 19th century or early 20th century, many villages had their characteristic manufacture, but earlier occupations were less concentrated. Some of these concentrations are less ancient than sometimes supposed. For example, chain making in Cradley Heath seems only to have begun in about
4680-539: The Old Patent tube works of John Russell & Co. Ltd., and within weeks upwards of 40,000 workers across the Black Country had joined the dispute. Notable figures in the labour movement, including a key proponent of Syndicalism , Tom Mann , visited the area to support the workers and Jack Beard and Julia Varley of the Workers' Union were active in organising the strike. During this confrontation with employers represented by
4784-566: The Royalists had among their adherents Dud Dudley, now a Colonel in the Royalist army, who had experience in iron making, and who claimed he could turn out "all sorts of bar iron fit for making of muskets, carbines, and iron for great bolts", both more cheaply, more speedily and more excellent than could be done in any other way. In 1712, a Newcomen Engine was constructed near Dudley and used to pump water from coal mines belonging to Lord Dudley. This
4888-473: The UK. An average area of wards or electoral divisions in the United Kingdom is 28.109 km (10.853 sq mi). The London boroughs , metropolitan boroughs and non-metropolitan districts (including most unitary authorities ) are divided into wards for local elections. However, county council elections (as well as those for several unitary councils which were formerly county councils, such as
4992-708: The United Kingdom The wards and electoral divisions in the United Kingdom are electoral districts at sub-national level, represented by one or more councillors . The ward is the primary unit of English electoral geography for civil parishes and borough and district councils, the electoral ward is the unit used by Welsh principal councils , while the electoral division is the unit used by English county councils and some unitary authorities . Each ward/division has an average electorate of about 5,500 people, but ward population counts can vary substantially. As of 2021 there are 8,694 electoral wards/divisions in
5096-531: The West Midlands, with Solihull coming top. It also benefits from tourism due to the popularity of the Black Country Living Museum , Dudley Zoo and Dudley Castle . As with many urban areas in the UK, there is also a significant ethnic minority population in parts: in Sandwell, 22.6 per cent of the population is from ethnic minorities, and in Wolverhampton the figure is 23.5 per cent. However, in Walsall 84.6 per cent of
5200-480: The accounts of the building of Henry VIII's Nonsuch Palace record that nails were supplied by Reynolde Warde of Dudley at a cost of 11s 4d per thousand. By the 1620s "Within ten miles [16 km] of Dudley Castle there were 20,000 smiths of all sorts". In the early 17th century, Dud Dudley , a natural son of the Baron of Dudley, experimented with making iron using coal rather than charcoal. Two patents were granted for
5304-470: The agricultural part of Staffordshire, just before you enter the dismal region of mines and forges, commonly called the 'Black Country', stands the pretty village of Oakthorpe", "commonly" implying that the term was already in use. He also writes that "the whole country is blackened with smoke by day, and glowing with fires by night", and that "the 'Black Country' ... is about twenty miles in length and five in bredth reaching from north to south". The phrase
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#17328444445295408-446: The anthem was raised in 2013 by James Stevens and Steven Edwards who wanted the region to have an official anthem to accompany the Black Country flag & Black Country Day. The heavy industry which once dominated the Black Country has now largely gone. The 20th century saw a decline in coal mining and the industry finally came to an end in 1968 with the closure of Baggeridge Colliery near Sedgley . Clean air legislation has meant that
5512-428: The area to exploitation. Advances in the use of coke for the production of iron enabled iron production (hitherto limited by the supply of charcoal ) to expand rapidly. By Victorian times, the Black Country was one of the most heavily industrialised areas in Britain, and it became known for its pollution, particularly from iron and coal industries and their many associated smaller businesses. Industrialisation led to
5616-572: The area's workforce had effectively eschewed trade unionism. The 20th century saw a decline in coal mining in the Black Country, with the last colliery in the region – Baggeridge Colliery near Sedgley – closing on 2 March 1968, marking the end of an era after some 300 years of mass coal mining in the region, though a small number of open cast mines remained in use for a few years afterwards. Other industries thrived, however. Manufacturers like Rubery Owen , Chance Bros , Wilkins and Mitchell , GKN , John Thompson (company) and many more prospered from
5720-412: The area. Areas around the canals (the cut) which had mines extracting mineral resources and heavy industry refining these are included in this definition. Cultural parameters include unique or characteristic foods such as groaty pudding , grey peas and bacon, faggots , gammon or pork hocks and pork scratchings ; Black Country humour; and the Black Country dialect. The Black Country Society defines
5824-626: The building was set to be sold off, however in October 2023 West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner , Simon Foster announced the station is to be reopened in 2024. The main supermarkets are Tesco on the corner of Ridgacre Lane and Ridgacre Road built in 2007 on the site of Birmingham Corporation's Quinton bus depot and Asda on Hagley Road West which opened in October 2011 on the site of the Kings Highway public house. Quinton Cemetery covering 51 acres (21 ha) opened in 1923 and although in Halesowen
5928-570: The catchment areas of the River Severn and the River Trent . Housing The area is almost entirely residential, though there are typical small local service businesses. An office park, accessed from the Quinton Expressway, has been built on part of Quinton Meadows. The original Quinton village in the area around Christ Church on Hagley Road West is of largely Victorian terraced houses. On
6032-408: The centre. The 14-mile (23 km) road between Wolverhampton and Birmingham was described as "one continuous town" in 1785. The area was one of the Industrial Revolution 's birthplaces. Either the 30-foot-thick coal seam close to the surface or the mix of coalworks , cokeworks , ironworks , glassworks , brickworks and steelworks (which produced high levels of soot and air pollution at
6136-430: The coalfield rather than the thick seam, running from Wolverhampton to Bloxwich, to West Bromwich, to Stourbridge and back to Wolverhampton again. A travelogue published in 1860 made the connection more explicit, calling the name "eminently descriptive, for blackness everywhere prevails; the ground is black, the atmosphere is black, and the underground is honeycombed by mining galleries stretching in utter blackness for many
6240-482: The coat-of-arms of the County Borough of Dudley. At a number of places, notably the Rowley Hills and at Barrow Hill , a hard igneous rock is found. The rock, known as dolerite, used to be quarried and used for road construction. In recent years the Black Country has seen the adoption of symbols and emblems with which to represent itself. The first of these to be registered was the Black Country tartan in 2009, designed by Philip Tibbetts from Halesowen. In 2008
6344-403: The consecration of Christ Church . Pitts Wood, a small ancient woodland designated as a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation adjoins Woodhouse Primary Academy and is used by the school for environmental education. Quinton Library on the corner of Overdale Road and Ridgacre Road opened on 2 June 1974. Adjoining the library is Quinborne Community Centre whose roots go back to 1938 at
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#17328444445296448-401: The corner of Ridgacre Road West and High Street stands the Nailer's Cottage, apparently 18th century, but whose lower walls may date back to the 16th century. It is the oldest dwelling in Quinton. The village spread south in the 1970s with the Chichester Drive housing development. Much of the Ridgacre estate consists of medium-sized, private semi-detached houses from the 1930s and 1940s. Many of
6552-448: The east and west of the geologically defined Black Country are therefore excluded by this definition because the coal here is too deep down and does not outcrop. The seam outcrop definition excludes areas in North Worcestershire and South Staffordshire. The first recorded use of the term "the Black Country" may be from a toast given by a Mr Simpson, town clerk to Lichfield , addressing a Reformer's meeting on 24 November 1841, published in
6656-404: The eastern boundary, however, the ward boundary extends further east to Lordswood Road in the B17 postcode area of Harborne . Quinton covers an area of 4.8 square kilometres (2 sq mi) though its boundaries have since expanded slightly. Eastern parts were formerly known as Ridgacre, with Quinton or "The Quinton" being the area now around the church. Elevation Quinton's highest point
6760-413: The establishment of this device was associated with Richard Foley , son of a Dudley nailer, who built a slitting mill near Kinver in 1628. The slitting mill made it much simpler to produce nail rods from iron bar. Another development of the early 17th century was the introduction of glass making to the Stourbridge area. One attraction of the region for glass makers was the local deposits of fireclay ,
6864-416: The expansion of local railways and coal mine lines. The line running from Stourbridge to Walsall via Dudley Port and Wednesbury closed in the 1960s, but the Birmingham to Wolverhampton line via Tipton is still a major transport route. The anchors and chains for the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic were made in the Black Country at Netherton . Three anchors and accompanying chains were manufactured; and
6968-408: The first to explicitly distinguish the area from nearby Birmingham , noting that "On certain rare holidays these people wash their faces, clothe themselves in decent garments, and, since the opening of the South Staffordshire Railway, take advantage of cheap excursion trains, go down to Birmingham to amuse themselves and make purchases." The geologist Joseph Jukes made it clear in 1858 that he felt
7072-420: The forerunners of a number of Black Country towns and villages such as Cradley, Dudley, Smethwick, and Halesowen are included in the Domesday Book of 1086. At this early date, the area was mostly rural. A monastery was founded in Wolverhampton in the Anglo-Saxon period and a castle and priory was built at Dudley during the period of Norman rule. Another religious house, Premonstratensian Abbey of Halesowen ,
7176-420: The form of Woodgate Valley Country Park . Along with Bartley Green , Harborne and Edgbaston , Quinton is within the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency . The name of Quinton is thought to derive from Cweningtun , meaning the queen's settlement. Quinton was formerly a chapelry in the ancient parish of Halesowen and was largely owned in medieval times by the wealthy abbey at Lapal near Halesowen . In
7280-620: The former Edgbaston Golf Clubhouse. Quinborne is an amalgam of Quinton and Harborne. The centre includes a stage and indoor sports facility, Bennett Hall, built in 1958 from funds donated by the late Lord Peter Bennett . The community association offers academic, activity and social classes. There is also a pre-school nursery and youth club. The area is served by three post offices: Quinton post office on Hagley Road West in Quinton village, Faraday Avenue post office on Worlds End Lane and West Boulevard post office on Court Oak Road. Quinton police station on Quinton Road West had permanently closed and
7384-461: The head of each of the V-shaped cul-de-sacs that project into Woodgate Valley is a four-storey block of flats. Parks and open spaces The northern part of Woodgate Valley Country Park down to the Bourn Brook lies in Quinton. Woodland and shrubs planted in the late 1980s predominate, but there are also some smaller areas of open meadow. Quinton Meadows Local Nature Reserve comprises 25 acres (10 ha) of grassland and woodland sandwiched between
7488-650: The idea of a flag for the region was first raised. After four years of campaigning a competition was successfully organised with the Black Country Living Museum . This resulted in the adoption of the Flag of the Black Country as designed by Gracie Sheppard of Redhill School in Stourbridge and was registered with the Flag Institute in July 2012. The flag was unveiled at the museum on 14 July 2012 as part of celebration in honour of
7592-518: The local area's unemployment dramatically, however. The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley recreates life in the Black Country in the early 20th century, and is a popular tourist attraction . On 17 February 2012 the museum's collection in its entirety was awarded Designation by Arts Council England (ACE). Designation is a mark of distinction that celebrates unique collections of national and international importance. The four metropolitan boroughs of
7696-408: The meaning of the term was self-explanatory to contemporary visitors, remarking that "It is commonly known in the neighbourhood as the 'Black Country', an epithet the appropriateness of which must be acknowledged by anyone who even passes through it on a railway". Jukes based his Black Country on the seat of the great iron manufacture, which for him was geographically determined by the ironstone tract of
7800-459: The most economically deprived communities in the UK. This is particularly true in parts of the metropolitan boroughs of Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. According to the Government's 2007 Index of Deprivation (ID 2007), Sandwell is the third most deprived authority in the West Midlands region, after Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent , and the 14th most deprived of the UK's 354 districts. Wolverhampton
7904-529: The north of Worcestershire turned out successive supplies of sword blades and pike heads. It was said that among the many causes of anger Charles had against Birmingham was that one of the best sword makers of the day, Robert Porter , who manufactured swords in Digbeth , Birmingham, refused at any price to supply swords for " that man of blood " (a Puritan nickname for King Charles), or any of his adherents. As an offset to this sword-cutler and men like him in Birmingham,
8008-399: The northern districts through Willenhall to Bentley, The Birchills, Walsall and Darlaston, Wednesbury, Smethwick and Dudley Port, West Bromwich and Hill Top, Brockmoor, Wordsley and Stourbridge. As the atmosphere becomes purer, we get to the higher ground of Brierley Hill, nevertheless here also, as far as the eye can reach, on all sides, tall chimneys vomit forth great clouds of smoke". Today
8112-630: The outbreak of the First World War . Following a ballot of the union membership, a settlement of the dispute was reached on 11 July after arbitration by government officials from the Board of Trade led by the Chief Industrial Commissioner Sir George Askwith, 1st Baron Askwith . One of the important consequences of the strike was the growth of organised labour across the Black Country, which was notable because until this point
8216-480: The parish was abolished and merged with Birmingham. In 1911 the parish had a population of 1120. Quinton developed along the turnpiked Kidderminster and Birmingham road. Data from the 1881 census shows working in agriculture and the building trades to be the top two male occupations whereas for working women it was domestic service and nail making. Prior to the construction of the M5 motorway, Quinton's north western boundary extended over 250 metres (820 ft) to
8320-507: The population is described as white, while in Dudley 92 per cent of the population is white. Resistance to mass immigration in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s led to the slogan " Keep the Black Country white! ". The Black Country suffered its biggest economic blows in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when unemployment soared largely because of the closure of historic large factories including the Round Oak Steel Works at Brierley Hill and
8424-574: The post-war boom in Britain, with the West Midlands motor industry being a key driver of the economy. Wages rose faster than the national average, and unemployment remained low into the late 1970s. It was only in the late 1970s and 1980s, as global shocks and political change affected British industry, that the region began to become deindustrialised, with the years 1979-1982 witnessing the closure of large employers such as Bilston Steel Works , Round Oak, Patent Shaft Steelworks, Rubery Owen, Birmid Industries and others in quick succession. The population of
8528-506: The presence of iron ore and coal in a seam 30 feet (9 m) thick, the thickest seam in Great Britain, which outcropped in various places. The first recorded blast furnace in the Black Country was built at West Bromwich in the early 1560s. Many people had an agricultural smallholding and supplemented their income by working as nailers or smiths, an example of a phenomenon known to economic historians as proto-industrialisation . In 1583,
8632-463: The process: one in 1621 to Lord Dudley and one in 1638 to Dud Dudley and three others. In his work Metallum Martis , published in 1665, he claimed to have "made Iron to profit with Pit-cole". However, considerable doubt has been cast on this claim by later writers. An important development in the early 17th century was the introduction of the slitting mill to the Midlands area. In the Black Country,
8736-616: The region. Black Country Day takes place on 14 July each year. Originally in March, the day was later moved to 14 July—the anniversary of the invention of the Newcomen steam engine—and now coincides with a wider series of events throughout the month aimed at promoting Black Country Culture called the Black Country Festival. The Black Country Anthem was written by James Stevens and is performed by Black Country band The Empty Can. The idea for
8840-405: The ribs of a half decayed corpse. The majority of the natives of this Tartarian region are in full keeping with the scenery – savages, without the grace of savages, coarsely clad in filthy garments, with no change on weekends or Sundays, they converse in a language belarded with fearful and disgusting oaths, which can scarcely be recognised as the same as that of civilized England. This work was also
8944-475: The roads are tree-lined. Construction of the estate was halted during World War II . In the 1950s, council houses typical of the period were built. Further council housing was built south of Quinton Road West along Simmons Drive in the 1970s, encroaching into the Woodgate Valley. Most of the housing is two storey terraces but there are some three storey townhouses all of which originally had integral garages. At
9048-664: The set weighed in at 100 tons . The centre anchor alone weighed 12 tons and was pulled through Netherton on its journey to the ship by 20 Shire horses . In 1913, the Black Country was the location of arguably one of the most important strikes in British trade union history when the workers employed in the area's steel tube trade came out for two months in a successful demand for a 23 shilling minimum weekly wage for unskilled workers, giving them pay parity with their counterparts in nearby Birmingham. This action commenced on 9 May in Wednesbury, at
9152-566: The site. The history of industry in the Black Country is connected directly to its underlying geology. Much of the region lies upon an exposed coalfield forming the southern part of the South Staffordshire Coalfield where mining has taken place since the Middle Ages. There are, in fact several coal seams, some of which were given names by the miners. The top, thin coal seam is known as Broach Coal . Beneath this lies successively
9256-615: The south of the ridge, water flows into the Stour and thence to the Severn and the Bristol Channel. At Dudley and Wrens Nest, limestone was mined. This rock formation was formed in the Silurian period and contains many fossils. One particular fossilized creature, the trilobite Calymene blumenbachii , was so common that it became known as the "Dudley Bug" or "Dudley Locust" and was incorporated into
9360-500: The term commonly refers to the majority of the four metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton although it is said that "no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends". Official use of the name came in 1987 with the Black Country Development Corporation , an urban development corporation covering the metropolitan boroughs of Sandwell and Walsall, which
9464-466: The time) led to the area's name, which was first recorded in the 1840s. The Black Country has no single set of defined boundaries. Some traditionalists define it as "the area where the coal seam comes to the surface – so West Bromwich , Coseley , Oldbury , Blackheath , Cradley Heath , Old Hill , Bilston , Dudley , Tipton , Wednesbury , and parts of Halesowen , Walsall and Smethwick or what used to be known as Warley ." There are records from
9568-419: The town as well as being a friend to many of its leading citizens, so his portrait of the surrounding area was largely positive. He was the author of the famous early description of the Black Country as "black by day and red by night", adding appreciatively that it "cannot be matched, for vast and varied production, by any other space of equal radius on the surface of the globe". Burritt used the term to refer to
9672-558: The wards within a local authority area typically each contain roughly the same number of electors, and each elect three councillors. In local authorities with mixed urban and rural areas, the number of councillors may vary from one to three, depending on the size of the electorate. Where civil parishes exist, a ward can be adjacent with a civil parish or consist of groups of civil parishes. Larger civil parishes (such as Shrewsbury ) can be divided into two or more wards. The City of London has its own sui generis form of local government and
9776-550: The west. Where is now the Chantry Drive housing development there formerly stood the Primitive Methodist, Bourne College in its 19 acres (7.7 ha) of grounds. The college, a boarding school for boys, was built in 1882 and named after one of the joint founders of Primitive Methodism , Hugh Bourne . Hoosen Close is named after the college's only headmaster. The college closed in 1928 and the buildings were used from 1931 as
9880-493: The wind and so Quinton was not a prime bombing target for the German Luftwaffe. On 17 July 1941, all six crew of a Royal Air Force, World War Two, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley (Z6476) bomber died when their plane crashed in Quinton after striking a barrage balloon cable on a training flight from RAF Abingdon . The only fatalities from German bombs that fell on Quinton were a mother and son who perished on 18 October 1940 when
9984-477: Was also heavily mined in Hamstead , further east, whose workings extended well under what is now north Birmingham . Smethwick and Dudley Port were described as "a thousand swarming hives of metallurgical industries" by Samuel Griffiths in 1872. Another geological definition, the seam outcrop definition, only includes areas where the coal seam is shallow, making the soil black at the surface. Some coal mining areas to
10088-568: Was connection to an extended Birmingham drainage and sewerage network. For Birmingham Corporation the attraction was the prospect of developing farmland for housing. A tree was planted by Birmingham's Lord Mayor in Quinton Recreation Ground to commemorate the centenary. Quinton became, with the rest of Birmingham, part of the metropolitan county of the West Midlands on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972 . Although
10192-634: Was demolished to make way for the M5 motorway. Ridgacre Methodist Church on World's End Lane opened in May 1951. The Catholic parish of Our Lady of Fatima is part of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. The Parish Hall was built in Higgins Lane in 1952 and served as a dual purpose building for both church and social activities. The present church was built next to the hall, and was consecrated on 7 October 1978 by His Grace, George Patrick Dwyer , Archbishop of Birmingham. Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School
10296-512: Was disbanded in 1998. The Black Country Consortium (founded in 1999) and the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (founded in 2011) both define the Black Country as the four metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton, an approximate area of 138 square miles (360 km ). The borders of the Black Country can be defined by using the special cultural and industrial characteristics of
10400-565: Was discovered beyond the western boundary fault at Baggeridge at a depth of around 600 yards. A broken ridge runs across the Black Country in a north-westerly direction through Dudley, Wrens Nest and Sedgley, separating the Black Country into two regions. This ridge forms part of a major watershed of England with streams to the north taking water to the Tame and then via the Trent into the North Sea whilst to
10504-591: Was extended in August 1986 across the Woodgate Valley and reclassified as the B4121. No railway lines or canals pass through Quinton. The 2021 Population Census recorded that 21,377 people were living in Quinton, down from 23,084 in 2001. 40% (8,548) of the ward's population consisted of ethnic minorities (up from 14.5% in 2001), compared with 51.3% for Birmingham. 46.8% of the population of Quinton stated Christianity as their religion in 2021, down from 71.7% in 2001. Quinton ward
10608-403: Was founded in the early 13th century. A number of Black Country villages developed into market towns and boroughs in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, notably Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Coal mining was carried out for several centuries in the Black Country, starting from medieval times, and metalworking was important in the Black Country area as early as the 16th century spurred on by
10712-687: Was previously numbered 39 and starts from outside the Tesco store built on the site of Quinton bus garage. Quinton is home to three amateur football teams, Quinton Monarch, Quinton Magpies and Quinton Rangers, all three play in the Warley and District Football League. A healthy local rivalry has been built up over several years with the Monarch significantly more successful. Quinton was fictionalised as "Tilton" by Francis Brett Young in his 1931 novel Mr & Mrs Pennington . Wards and electoral divisions of
10816-627: Was used again, though as a description rather than a proper noun , by the Illustrated London News in an 1849 article on the opening of the South Staffordshire Railway . An 1851 guidebook to the London and North Western Railway included an entire chapter entitled "The Black Country", including an early description: In this Black Country, including West Bromwich, Dudley, Darlaston, Bilston, Wolverhampton and several minor villages,
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