Homes built for rent by local authorities are a common feature of the modern Black Country landscape. They’ve been built over more than a century in the area and in 2001 for example they made up one in every four homes.
But despite their contribution to the area and influence on people’s lives, relatively little has been recorded about their history in the Black Country.
We want to try to put that right. Together with local tenants’ organisations, we are making a bid to Heritage Lottery Fund to support an investigation of the history of council housing in the Black Country by volunteer researchers. If successful, the grant would provide for free training and support for volunteers who take part. In return, volunteers will be asked to give some of their own time to contribute to the investigation.
The pilot project, over the first year, will focus on high-rise flats built (and some demolished too) in the Bilston, Darlaston, Tipton, Wednesbury and Willenhall areas.
You can help!
To support our bid, we are collecting details of anyone who might like to volunteer for the project. If you are interested please complete the form below. This allows us to stay in touch with you, but we’d also like to know which aspects of the history you’d like to investigate. We’ve suggested some to choose from on the form.
If you would like to stay in touch by email you can fill in the form online by clicking the button below. Alternatively, download the form as a Word or a PDF file, complete it and send it to our postal address here.
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Our council housing project is supported by Sandwell Community Information and Partnership Service; Walsall Tenants and Residents Federation; Wolverhampton Federation of Tenants Associations; The Centre for West Midlands History; Wednesbury History Society; Wolverhampton Culture, Arts & Heritage Service
The Black Country had far fewer tower blocks than neighbouring Birmingham, where hundreds were built including 34 at Castle Vale alone. 11 tower blocks were built in Dudley (the pre-1966 borough); 3 at Eve Hill, 2 at Grange Park, 2 at Queen’s Cross and 4 at Netherton, but 2 of the Eve Hill blocks were demolished in 1999 followed by both at Queen’s Cross in 2001. 9 blocks of 10+ storeys were built at Brierley Hill in the 1960s on the Chapel Street estate as well as several blocks of up to 6 storeys. 3 or 4 tower blocks were built in Stourbridge around the town centre and Wollaston. Halesowen built 3 blocks of around 15 storeys at Andrew Road and several smaller blocks in neighbouring Highfield Lane, along with 3 tower blocks on the Tanhouse estate at Cradley, 2 of which were demolished in 1999. There were no blocks of more than 4 or 5 storeys high in Sedgley, Coseley or Kingswinford.
Far more tower blocks were built in Wolverhampton, most of which still remain 40-55 years after construction. They can be found at Heath Town, Merry Hill and Whitmore Reans. Since 2002, however, the Blakenhall Gardens high rise estate of 5 tower blocks as well as low-rise shops and a pub has gradually been demolished to make way for a new development of housing and shops.
Walsall had many tower blocks in the town centre but most of these have been demolished since 2004. There were 4 tower blocks in Darlaston but these were demolished; the first pair in 2001 and the second in 2004. 4 tower blocks were built in Willenhall but 2 were demolished in about 2005. Approximately 10 blocks were built in Bloxwich but 3 of them have been demolished in the last decade; 2 in High Street and another in Blakenall Heath.
12 tower blocks were built in Tipton, the first being Coronation House near the town centre in the late 1950s. This was demolished in 1997. Jellicoe House and Beatty House on the Glebefields estate, built in the mid 1960s, were demolished in 2004. The Bolton Court complex at Ocker Hill was demolished in stages between about 1990 and 2011, the first demolition being of 1 tower block followed by 2 maisonette blocks in 2007 and the final 2 tower blocks last year. Drake House at Upper Church Lane was demolished in 2002 but neighbouring Nelson House still exists. St Martin’s House off Upper Church Lane was demolished in the early 1990s. Apart from Nelson House, the only 3 remaining tower blocks in Tipton are now Heronville House, Paget House and Wyrley House in the Tividale area.
West Bromwich built dozens of tower blocks, mostly around Glover Street, the Kenrick Estate, and at the Lyng estate. Many have been demolished since the 1990s but a large number remain and have been refurbished to a high standard.
Two tower blocks were built in Wednesbury town centre in the 1960s and remain today following a recent refurbishment. Carisbroke House on the predominantly 1920s/1930s Friar Park estate was demolished in 2002 however.
A large number of tower blocks were built in Smethwick but many have been demolished since the 1990s. The tallest tower block in the town was Hamilton House, Cape Hill, which was completed in 1970 but demolished on 18th March 2006 in a controlled explosion.
The Riddins Mound estate was built at Cradley Heath in the mid 1960s and included the town’s only 3 tower blocks. Addenbrooke Court and Wesley Court still exist nearly 50 years later, but Bridge Court was demolished in 1996.
3 tower blocks were built at Rowley Regis in the 1960s; St Giles Court, Moorlands Court and Wychbury Court. St Giles Court and Moorlands Court still exist and were refurbished in the mid 2000s but Wychbury Court was demolished in the late 1990s.
Oldbury’s Brandhall Estate, built in the 1950s and 1960s, had one tower block, Foley House, which was demolished in 2000. Most of the town’s tower blocks were built on the Lion Farm estate during the 1960s, where 9 multi-storey blocks were built but 6 of them were demolished between 1993 and 2000. The 3 remaining blocks are Hackwood House, Harry Price House and Wallace House.
Dudley’s first council houses were built at Kates Hill, in the area bordered by Corporation Road, Highfield Road, Bunns Lane and Watson’s Green Road. The first few houses were completed in 1916 but construction was halted due to the war effort and by 1921 more than 300 houses had been built there. Around the same time, houses were built on smaller developments around Grazebrook Road, Netherton Park, Cradley Road, Woodside, and Blower’s Green. The largest interwar council estate built in Dudley was the Priory Estate, which was built between 1929 and 1939 and took in a lot of land which was previously in Sedgley and as a result the boundaries had to be altered to expand Dudley. The neighbouring Wren’s Nest Estate was built around the same time, as was the Grace Mary Estate at Oakham.
The borough of Dudley took in Brierley Hill and most of Sedgley and Kingswinford as well as the south of Coseley in 1966, followed by Stourbridge and Halesowen in 1974.
The oldest council houses in Sedgley are believed to be on the Tudor Estate off Dudley Road, where the first houses were built in 1921 and as recently as 1989 it was reported in local newspapers that some houses on that estate still lacked indoor toilets. The Beacon Estate was built near the town centre in the 1920s, as was Boundary Hill in the village of Lower Gornal.
Stourbridge built council estates including Gigmill and the Grange Estate in the 1920s and 1930s.
Halesowen built council houses in the 1920s and 1930s around Olive Hill near Quinton and Alexandra Road to the west of the town centre as well as Long Innage at Cradley.
Wolverhampton built its first council houses at Green Lane (which later became Birmingham Road) in 1902 and then built further council houses at Park Village in 1908, but its first large development took place between 1919 and 1921 when houses were built at Parkfield Road, Birches Barn and Oxley. Then in the mid to late 1920s more than 2,000 council houses were built on the Low Hill Estate at Bushbury.
Alex, This is a really useful and informative tour of Black Country council housing. I also have a question for you. I am currently doing postgraduate research on post-war Smethwick. As part of this I am interested in mapping what I probably rather casually term ‘overspill’ council housing built by Smethwick in neighbouring areas, mainly Oldbury, from around 1930 to 1966. It reached around 1,000 units in Oldbury by 1945. By 1959 it was 1,600 having included developments like Perry Hill Road and it then culminated in the 1960s Kingsway estate in Brandhall. Apparently some houses in roads like Oldacre and Harvington in Brandhall were Smethwick Corporation built. That is a good distance from Smethwick and it suggests that there was considerable intermingling of Oldbury and Smethwick council housing in Bristnall and Brandhall. I’d like to map it! So if you – or any other reader – know the respective Smethwick and Oldbury builds I would be delighted to use (and acknowledge) your information in my work.
I have little knowledge of the Smethwick developments and until now I was unaware that the authority built houses in neighbouring Oldbury before the boroughs were brought together in 1966 by the creation of Warley, which also took in Rowley Regis along with the Tividale area of Tipton and some of Oakham in Dudley.
And I understand that most of houses on the new council estates in Telford new town, built during the 1960s and 1970s, were given to families rehoused from slums in the Black Country and neighbouring Birmingham. There may have been families from the region placed in other new towns, for example Milton Keynes and expanded towns including Redditch and Tamworth.
Perhaps Smethwick was alone in the Black Country with its overspill estates. The reason was land shortage: by 1947 despite Smethwick’s incorporation of part of Oldbury, only 1% of its land area was vacant, with the town being fully built-up.
Are you still looking for potential volunteers for this project? I’ve just come across it via a WAVE Art & Heritage magazine and is something I’d be interested in. The initial utopian vision/politics behind many of the projects really does interest me.
Robert – yes, we certainly are. You can either fill in the form (above) or come and see us for a chat in Wolverhampton. We’d be pleased to hear from you