[WEDNESBURY PAPERS Contents] ~ [F.W. Hackwood] ~ [Alice's Autographs] ~ [Home] ~ [Feedback]
XVII.
AMONG the most primitive means of keeping up a communication between Wednesbury and the outside world, that ever faithful servant to mankind, the horse, may be allowed to rank in a front position. And when we name the horse in this connection, we do not include any wheeled vehicle to which our modern ideas of his usefulness may be inclined to attach him. Our roads and highways have not always been in that highly furnished state, in which it is now the pride of the Town Surveyor to maintain them : and, en passant, it must be confessed that if our footpaths still present a wonderful appearance in the diversity and patchwork variety of their styles of paving, we certainly hold ourselves second to none in the condition in which we maintain our horse-roads ; and this will be readily conceded by every one who drives regularly in the district. But years before Macadam had risen to be the benefactor of our modern Jehus, and long before the days of Town Surveyors, the state of the roads throughout the country precluded the possibility of travelling over them in a wheeled vehicle with any degree of safety. It was in those times, when public quagmires were dignified by the name of highways, that that unique specimen of the flunkey tribe, the "running footman," was called into active being ; his duty it was to run alongside the family coach, armed with a stout staff wherewith to prop up that ponderous vehicle when its wheels became entangled with the ruts and eccentricities of a "nasty bit of road." No wonder that the back of a horse was esteemed a safer place than the inside of a vehicle ; and we have read how Charles II. rode through the streets of Wednesbury on a pillion behind Jane Lane when he escaped from Bentley Hall in 1651, to begin his long exile on the Continent. And not only was this method of locomotion employed for "passenger traffic," but goods were actually carried in the same way. Hutton, the historian of Birmingham, after a passing allusion to the war-chariots which the ancient Britons drove over this country two thousand years ago, when Wednesbury formed the southern extremity of wild Cornavii, goes on to tell us how, in later times, "the produce of the Wednesbury mines was carried on horses' backs to Aston Furnace and Birmingham;" he acquaints us with the cast extent of the mines called "Wednesbury Old Field," and then very accurately arrives at a generalization - which now-a-days we know but too well - that "thus the mines of Wednesbury empty their riches into the lap of Birmingham." That Birmingham should make a profit out of Wednesbury, is therefore no new thing after all. It is interesting to learn from the same authority that Holloway Bank was probably what its name literally signifies, "a hollow way," "to soften the fatigue of climbing the hill" in the traffic previously alluded to ; and another relic of that old-fashioned method of conveying goods may be remembered in the sign of the "Old Pack Horse Inn," by which an hostelry in Dudley Street was known for many years. With the improvement of the highways came in the more general use of vehicles, and particularly of the stage coach. Wednesbury was on the main route from London to Holyhead, hence the name Holyhead Road. At one time this coach-road lay through the Market Place, along Trouse Lane, Bilston Road, and Dangerfield Lane, and on through Catherine's Cross to Bilston, and the old octagonal cottage in the Lane, then used as a toll-house, is still standing ; when the road was straightened through Cock Heath and Moxley, the toll-gate was removed to its late position near the present railway bridge. There has been a subsequent attempt to overcome some further vagaries of this winding road, when the straight line was struck, from Camphill Lane, to the junction of the Bilston Road, near the bridge just mentioned.
The stately stage coach was not resorted to for for the purposes of local traffic ; but in lieu thereof was established a system of modest omnibuses, which till 1855 plied regularly six times a day to Birmingham, to Wolverhampton, and to Darlaston and Willenhall ; the calling-houses for these were the carriers' carts plying between all the neighbouring towns and to the metropolis ; and when necessity demanded that a poor person should undertake the adventurous enterprise of a journey to London, the carrier's cart was looked upon as the only available means, and the journey from Wednesbury to the Metropolis occupied about six days. For all these varieties of vehicular traffic it was necessary and important to keep the main roads in good repair. In the Parish of Wednesbury there were three turnpike trusts - the Bilston, the Birmingham, and the Walsall. They did not any of them pass through the "town," the several Acts of Parliament preventing them. The whole of the town roads were repaired, previous to the establishment of the Board of Health, by the Surveyor of the Highways. The total length of the parish roads was then 13½ miles. The following table will give an idea of the Highway rates collected for this purpose : -
Relics of the Birmingham Turnpike Trust may still be noted in those iron stumps (which were used to mark the limit of its control) one of which still stands in Lower High Street, near Lloyd's Bank, and another may be seen in Trouse Lane, near the corner of the Rising Sun Inn.
Beyond these means of inter-communication, the heavy mineral traffic of Wednesbury has for about a century enjoyed the benefit of a general inland navigation by means of the Walsall and Birmingham Canal, or as the system is now called, the "Birmingham Canal Navigations," with its numerous arms and commodious wharves in Lea Brook and Holloway Bank. The Company has about three miles of canal within the parish boundaries, the rateable value of which is nearly £600. The principal branches within the township, are from Moxley "stop" to Lea Brook ; and the Tame Valley Branch, from the rifle butts at Bustlehome, to the boundary of the parish near the Birmingham and Walsall turnpike road. The introduction of Railways to the locality dates back to July, 1838, when the Grand Junction Line was opened, , with a Bescot Station where Wood Green Station now is. The opening of this line was made the occasion of great rejoicing by Wednesbury people. All along the sides of the line booths and shows were erected, and the first train was taken along so slowly that the passengers could shake hands, through the windows of the open carriages, with the holiday-makers who thronged the route. The present Bescot Junction Station was opened in 1850, when the South Stafford Railway had been completed between Dudley, Wednesbury, and Wichnor, and the Wood Green * (* On June 9th, 1859, a Goods Train fell through the Wooden Bridge into Elwell's Pool) curve had put us in communication with London, via the Grand Junction Railway. The first Wednesbury Railway Station was a dingy, low-lying, wooden structure approached through endless mud puddles, and totally devoid of all convenience when it was reached. The South Stafford line by 1859 was absorbed into the London and North-Western system, and by September, 1863, a new and pretty station had been erected, on the site of the old wooden one, with two new branches running from it, one to Darlaston, and the other to Princes End. At present the L. & N.W.R. Company have nearly 4 miles of lines in the parish, which are assessed at considerably over £2,000. The Great Western Railway, which gives much greater facilities to the town, only just touches the borders of the parish ; for Brunel never studied the centres of the population, although he provided such substantial stations and commodious waiting-rooms for the passengers to be drawn from them ; his Wednesbury Station was struck in the midst of fields and old pit-banks, and the first passenger train ran through it in November, 1854. Although the Company is assessed at £1,450, it has only 57 chains of line within the parish boundaries. A further development of local inter-communication introduced the "hackney carriage" to our streets ; in both its forms, as the rapid hansom, or as the roomy car, it is not now the object of interest which it was some dozen years back. This fact was alluded to when the Cabmen's Shelter was opened on 1st May, 1883, at the Great Western Station.
The newest method of locomotion presented to the Wednesbury public is the work of the South Staffordshire and Birmingham District Steam Tramways Company. When completed there will be about 25 miles of line laid down, and the town of Wednesbury will be the centre of the system. The section between Darlaston and Handsworth was opened for traffic on July 16th, 1883 : the Hill Top and Great Bridge section was opened on January 14th, 1884 ; the Wednesbury and Dudley section was opened on January 25th, 1884 : and the remaining sections are to be completed within a few months. Wednesbury is one of the sub-centres of the National Telephone Company. The other towns included within this sub-centre are Walsall, Bilston, and West Bromwich. In the Midland constituencies of this Company, Wednesbury ranks second : there are 350 subscribers in the Birmingham district, 60 on the Wednesbury, 50 in the Wolverhampton, and 7 in the Brierley Hill district.
[After Waterloo events crowded thick and fast upon each other ; some fateful, some threatening, and all of them significant of the wide-spread distress attending the long period of war just brought to a close. In some parts the cry was "Bread or Blood !" although the better counsels of Cobbett and his Register prevailed for a time. In the locality colliers and ROAD AND CANAL MAKING ironworkers were thrown out of employment ; in Derbyshire and other adjoining counties the distressed populace gave vent to their anguish by the destruction of machinery. In fact the Government were secretly informed that the materials of insurrection existed in these Midland Counties, and that danger was imminent. Then followed, as a kind of reprisals, imprisonment and execution of the Luddites and other rioters. In 1817 the Prince Regent sent down to the Lords the celebrated "Green-bag" of documents regarding the late extraordinary powers which the Ministers had assumed since the rumblings of the distant insurrection had reached their ears from the Midlands. In the midst of all these commotions there was one great man who calmly and unconcernedly maintained the peaceful tenour of his way. This was Telford, the engineer, Empowered by an Act (55 Geo. III., c. 152) he was then re-making the great coach-road from London to Holyhead. The poverty and distress in Wednesbury was so great at the time, that hundreds of men availed themselves of this opportunity of employment, and engaged themselves upon the road-making at wages of a shilling a day. It was by the aid of such "relief" labour as this, that the Holloway Bank was cut deeper, and the Bridge end levelled up above the entrance of those old houses still standing down in the hole. The ford across the Brook was re-placed by the present bridge, a structure not very ornamental, but like all Telford's work, substantial, and admirably adapted to the purpose for which it is intended. The first canal in this part of the country was made between Wednesbury and Birmingham in 1768 ; for as we read in England Delineated by John Aiken (1788) "Bilston and Wednesbury are the places whence Birmingham is chiefly supplied with fuel." The new canal was made by Telford in 1826 : its fall from Ryder's Green to Wednesbury is 46 feet.]
|
