Brierley Hill
Brierley Hill - originally just Briers; hence its name. In the early seventeenth century immigrant glass makers from Lorraine, France, were attracted by its abundant raw materials - ferns, sand, coal, and fire clay.
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Coseley
Coseley, a mining village, developed when it was linked to Birmingham by James Brindley's canal. Several iron foundries were attracted by the coal, the most famous being Cannon in Deepfields, founded 1826, whose pots and pans were exported worldwide.
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Cradley
At Cradley Forge 'Dud' Dudley, a son of the Earl of Dudley, carried out pioneering experiments in smelting iron with coal, in 1619. These are recorded in his Metallum Martis : "the Author had made many Tuns of Iron with Pitcole in a Furnace in the Chase of Pensnett and also at two Forges or Iron Mills, called Cradley Forges, fined the said iron into Merchantable good Bar Iron?".Experiements have been carried out at the Museum to test his claims.
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Dudley
Dudley sits astride the ridge of hills separating the North and South of the Black Country and is known by many as the Capital of the Black Country. Locals say that the icy wind "dow stop to goo round yer, it goes through yer". The Medieval town plan and Market Place reflect its importance from an early date. The present castle dates from the fourteenth century and was occupied by the Dudley family until 1750. The Castle Hill was extensively mined for limestone, creating much of the Dudley's wealth. The castle became the centrepiece of Dudley Zoo when it opened in 1937.
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The Gornals
The Gornals are home of Aynuk and Ayli, the fictitious Black Country characters who embody the area's humour, in their deference to "gaffers", their harshness and their blend of feigned stupidity and cunning. A once thriving community of Gornal 'travellers' selling sand from the local quarries and imported salt, made Gornal 'ways' known throughout the Midlands, with their street cry: Buy my lily white sond! A Penny a bucket and a bit in yer 'ond.
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Halesowen
"In my childhood it seemed a most romantic place?given over to the manufacture, in hundreds of backyard workshops, of hand wrought nails?There were coal mines?also the great integrated concern which dealt in coal, iron, bricks, forgonigs etc. called the New British Iron Works?" Francis Brett Young, novelist (1884 -1954).
This former market town owes much of its growth to the arrival of industry in the nineteenth century. Heavy forging, spike making, tube and gun making were important.
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Kingswinford
The former Manor of Kingswinford covered a large part of the present Dudley borough, including Brierley Hill and Pensnett Chase, where 'Dud' Dudley claimed to have smelted iron with coal, well before Abraham Darby managed it successfully in Coalbrookdale. Nearby are numerous brick and tile factories, including the 'Dreadnought' works where the famous roof tiles are made. Mobberley's brick works, still opertaing in the 1990s, used distinctive 'beehive' kilns to make their bricks. Goods were transported by rail across the Pensnett Chase to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal by the famous locomotive Agenoria.
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Lye
In 1900 Lye was described as "the holloware shop not only of England but of the world. Even it's dustbins are made here". Dustbins are still made here, if no longer for the world.
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Netherton
Netherton is an old mining and iron working village between Dudley and Halesowen. The Staffordshire 'Square Work' method of getting coal was first used here. The most famous ironworks was Hingley's, where anchors were made for the great ocean liners, including the ill-fated Titanic. St. Andrew's churchyard is built of Gornal stone. So great was the death toll of the Great Cholera epidemic of 1832, that victims were turned away from St. Thomas' church in Dudley, and buried here, in common graves.
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Quarry Bank
Known locally as 'Quarry Bonk', its steep main street is a sprawl of shops and houses - typical of the Black Country.
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Sedgley
Coal mining and nails were the main industries of this town, sitting halfway bewteen Dudley and Wolverhampton with views to the West towards the rural landscape of Shropshire. To the North East the town looks down on the northern half of the Black Country with its canals, and modern industries replacing the ironworks, coal mines and smoking chimneys of yesteryear. Sedgley also had two large safe factories; and claimed to have developed steel writing pens before Birmingham industrialists took up the idea and made it their own.
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Stourbridge
On the South West edge of the borough, Stourbridge regarded itself as a 'cut above' the Black Country. Yet the area around it was taken up with smelting, of glass as well as iron. Immigrant glass makers from France started the industry here, drawn by its abundant raw materials: coal, sand and 'the best fire clay in the world'. The glass of the area may be called 'Stourbridge Glass', but manufacture also took place outside the town at Wordsley, Amblecote, Audnam, Brierley Hill and Dudley.
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