Brownhills
Brownhills is a town and former administrative centre situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands. The town lies close to the route of the ancient Watling Street but is not recorded before the 17th century. The most popular suggestion for the origin of the name is that it refers to the early mining spoil heaps which dotted the area. Brownhills quickly grew around the coal mining industry, especially after it became linked to the canal and railway networks.
About Brownhills in brief
Brownhills is a town and former administrative centre situated in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. The town lies close to the route of the ancient Watling Street but is not recorded before the 17th century. The most popular suggestion for the origin of the name is that it refers to the early mining spoil heaps which dotted the area. Brownhills quickly grew around the coal mining industry, especially after it became linked to the canal and railway networks in the mid-19th century, and by the end of the century had grown from a hamlet of only 300 inhabitants to a town with a population of over 13,000. Mining remained the town’s principal industry until the 1950s, but the subsequent closure of the area’s pits led to a severe economic decline which has continued until the present day. The local authority has instituted a regeneration programme which it is hoped will revive the town’s fortunes, providing better transport and leisure facilities. The last 135 acres of land sold off through the sale off of the South London Railway were sold off to London in 1846 and moved to South Kensington. The area was once part of the parish of Ogley Hay, which in modern times is a district of the town, and is recorded as a settlement in the Domesday Book. In 1858 a branch line was constructed through the heart of the hamlet, leading to a migration of the eastwards which led to the formation of what was then one hamlet and one town.
The population of Brownhill’s grew from 305 in 1801 to over 13,.000 in 1891 and one year later it was amalgamation into one town and one district. It is now situated within 1.5 miles of the county of Staffordshire and is within the Aldridge-Brownh Hills parliamentary constituency. It neighbours the large suburban villages of Pelsall and Walsal Wood and is near the large Chasewater reservoir. Before boundary changes in 1974, it was in Staffordshire but now lies within the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall and is close to Cannock Chase and Lichfield. There is evidence of early settlement in the area, including an ancient burial mound and a guard post believed to date from Roman times and later dubbed Knaves Castle. In 1759 a turnpike was erected in the Catshill area. A local legend claims that Dick Turpin once vaulted the barricade on his horse to avoid paying the toll, although this is demonstrably false as Turpin was executed in 1739, twenty years before the turnp Pike’s construction. The settlement is first recorded on Robert Plot’s 1680 map of Staffordshire, at which time it was a hamlets within the manor of Ogly Hay, in turn was part of the parish of Norton Canes. The name Brownh Hills is not known to have been used until at least the 1801 census. In the 19th century a horse-drawn tram system connected the mines to the wharves on the canal, and three years later the Wyrley & Essington Canal was opened.
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This page is based on the article Brownhills published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
