Over the Christmas break I decided to set myself the challenge of designing hypothetical flags for some of the main towns and villages of the Black Country. My initial research on the topic told me that five places in the Black Country already had existing official flags: Bloxwich, Finchfield, Kingswinford and Willenhall. This meant there… Continue reading Flags of the Black Country
The area which is now Woodgate Valley Country Park has a long and rich history associated with it. Today, there can still be seen traces of the site’s past land use - from bronze age remains and medieval moats to ancient field boundaries and woodland as well as old trackways and signs of former industrial… Continue reading Woodgate Valley – a History
Before becoming part of the city of Birmingham in 1911 Woodgate used to lie within the far western part of the ancient parish of Northfield in the county of Worcestershire. Woodgate was bounded by the following areas: To the west by Lapal, in the ancient parish of Halesowen, which since Norman times, had been a… Continue reading Woodgate, 1840
Before becoming part of Birmingham in 1891, Balsall Heath used to be part of Kings Norton Parish in the county of Worcestershire. This old parish was divided into ancient divisions for tax reasons known as ‘yields’ and Balsall Heath was within the ‘Moseley Yield’ along with Moseley, Kings Heath and Brandwood End. The remainder of… Continue reading Balsall Heath, 1838
Although we now know the area of woodland, wetland and meadows that lie between Yardley Wood Road, Windermere Road and Swanshurst Lane as Moseley Bog, this is actually a relatively recent name for this site. For the sake of both brevity and clarity throughout this article I will refer to the site as ‘Moseley Bog’… Continue reading Moseley Bog: A Journey Through Time
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