Sri Venkateswara (Balaji) Temple, Tividale (Wikimedia Commons) I submitted my thesis on Wolverhampton and its diasporic Irish space at the beginning of December, and my brain is slowly starting to unclog so that I can think about things outside the four walls of my home office again. With a bit of luck I might have … Continue reading Farm to Vaccination Centre: geographies of industry, politics and religion in Tividale
Category: environment
After Carribee Island: the persistent Irish quarter?
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 Carribee Island, the laying out of Princess Square and the new bit of Lichfield Street, and so on. I'm focusing at the moment on how … Continue reading After Carribee Island: the persistent Irish quarter?
“Slums” of the Black Country: Anvil Yard, Cradley Heath
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 to check out Anvil Yard. It turns out, the history of this little yard has already been comprehensively written on the excellent Cradley Links site, so … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: Anvil Yard, Cradley Heath
“Slums” of the Black Country: Waste Bank, Lye
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; Walsall preferred to be out, at least in 1866. The coalfield knows no political boundaries either, stretching well into Worcestershire in the South (see this map Bob … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: Waste Bank, Lye
“Slums” of the Black Country: Gold’s Hill, West Bromwich
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 built around, and to meet the demands of, the geology. The communities that build up around such environments therefore tend to be ad hoc, at the … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: Gold’s Hill, West Bromwich
“Slums” of the Black Country: Eel Street, Oldbury
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 Dr Janet Sullivan recently completed a top-notch PhD thesis on the environmental and biological costs of industrialisation in the town. For a quick overview of … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: Eel Street, Oldbury
“Slums” of the Black Country: a tour of Willenhall
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 Daily Post article of 11th June 1866, we are introduced to Willenhall via quotes from Ruskin's newly-released The Crown Of Wild Olive, whose preface describes the … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: a tour of Willenhall
“Slums” of the Black Country: Quarry Lane, Bilston
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 'low-lights' of the Black Country, the next in a series of exposées on the shocking sanitary conditions of the Black Country. Quarry Lane in Bilston … Continue reading “Slums” of the Black Country: Quarry Lane, Bilston
All the pieces matter
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 TV series I've been re-visiting through a particular lens. No Black Country history here either, we're in half-baked theory territory. Spoilers ahoy as well, if you … Continue reading All the pieces matter
The Planner’s Eye
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 inter-disciplinary research is a major part of academia these days, and the benefits it can bring are clearly profound - to see something anew, in a … Continue reading The Planner’s Eye