Holly Lodge High School

West Smethwick Park is a public park in the St Pauls ward of Smethwick, England. It opened on 7 September 1895. Smethwick – and thus the park – was traditionally in Staffordshire, but has been administered by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, as part of the West Midlands county, since 1974. In June 2015, it was announced that a £4.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant had been reserved for the park, subject to final approval. It would allow for the restoration of the pavilion, bandstand and memorials.

Smethwick West was a railway station on the Great Western Railway between Stourbridge Junction station and Smethwick Junction. It was opened as Smethwick Junction railway station in 1867.It closed in 1996, being replaced by a new railway station, Smethwick Galton Bridge, around 110 yards (100 metres) to the east, which serves two railway lines.

The Ruskin Pottery was an English art pottery studio founded in 1898 by Edward R. Taylor, the first principal of both the Lincoln School of Art and the Birmingham School of Art, to be run by his son, William Howson Taylor, formerly a student there. It was named after the artist, writer and social thinker John Ruskin, as the Taylors agreed with, and followed the tenets of Ruskin. The pottery was situated at 173-174 Oldbury Road, Smethwick, then in Staffordshire (now part of Sandwell, in the West Midlands county). The pottery produced was notable for the innovative glazes used on a range of brightly coloured pots, vases, buttons, bowls, tea services and jewellery. The ceramic glazes devised by William Howson Taylor included misty soufflé glazes, ice crystal effect glazes - 'crystalline', lustre glazes resembling metallic finishes, and the most highly regarded of all, sang-de-boeuf and flambé glazes which produced a blood red effect. The sang-de-boeuf glazes were created using reduction of copper and iron oxides at high temperature. This was a difficult technique, first developed in China in the 13th century and reinvented by several art potters in Europe in the late 19th century. William Howson Taylor was one of the principal exponents of 'high fired' techniques, producing a range of colours and unique 'fissured' glaze effects. Having exhibited at home and at international fine art exhibitions, the award of a "grand prize" in 1904 at the St Louis International Exhibition, gave them the recognition they needed. Further awards were gained at other international exhibitions, including Milan 1906; Christchurch, New Zealand, 1907; London 1908; Brussels 1910; Turin 1911; Ghent 1913. When the studio closed in 1935 the formulae for the glazes and all the pottery documentation were deliberately destroyed, so that the unique Ruskin products could never be replicated. A large collection of Ruskin Pottery is on public display at Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery, Wednesbury, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of the factory. The collection is owned by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and is managed by Sandwell Museum Service. The site of the factory is now an industrial estate, "Ruskin Place". A blue plaque marking the site, erected by the Smethwick Local History Society, was subsequently stolen.

Smethwick Junction is a junction on the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line. With Galton Junction, northbound trains on the West Coast Main Line's Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line can join the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line in a westbound direction. Until the re-opening of Birmingham Snow Hill for stations to Kidderminster in 1995, all passenger services routed via Smethwick and Galton Junctions to reach Birmingham New Street. With this re-opening, use of the link between the two junctions has sharply decreased. This was compounded with the removal/re-routing of the Worcester to New Street service in 2004, and now only selected freight services and charter trains use the link. It has also been used as a way to divert trains to Cheltenham Spa via Stourbridge Junction and Worcester Shrub Hill. In addition, the first and last Cardiff Central CrossCountry services of the day, which start and terminate at New Street, use this junction for operational reasons. On 12 November 2011, London Midland operated a service from Birmingham New Street to Kidderminster as part of a farewell to its Class 150 fleet.

Spon Lane railway station was a railway station in England, built by the London and North Western Railway on their Stour Valley Line in 1852. It served the western part of Smethwick. The station closed in 1964, although the Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford line/Birmingham Loop from the West Coast Main Line still runs through the site of the station today. There is little evidence of the location of the station on the ground today, and Smethwick Galton Bridge, which opened in 1995 a short distance to the east, now serves the area.

Sandwell Aquatics Centre is an indoor facility located in Londonderry, Smethwick, West Midlands, England. It contains an Olympic-size swimming pool (one of only two in the West Midlands region), a 10-metre diving board with 25 metre pool (the only one in the whole of the Midlands), a community swimming pool and permanent seating for 1,000 spectators with an additional 4,000 seats during the Games. Construction began in January 2020 and opened on 12 April 2022 to mark 100 days until the start of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The centre was initially used for the 2022 Commonwealth Games and was the only venue constructed for the games. After the games, the centre is scheduled to be redeveloped and will officially open for public use in May 2023 when it will be operated by the Sandwell Leisure Trust. During the redevelopment, seating used for the Games will be removed and two 4-court sports halls, a 108-station gym, a 28-station ladies-only gym, three activity studios, an indoor cycling studio, a sauna, a steam room, a football pitch with changing facilities, a dry diving area, an urban park and children's playground, and café will be created.Funding for the centre comes from several sources. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council is contributing £27 million, with £38.5 million coming from the overall Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games budget. A further £7.6 million is from Sport England, Black Country LEP, Sandwell Leisure Trust (SLT) and University of Wolverhampton.

Smethwick Galton Bridge is a split-level railway station in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. It is at a point where two railways' lines cross on two levels. It has platforms on both lines, allowing interchange between them. The two low-level platforms serve the Birmingham New Street to Wolverhampton Line, while the two high-level platforms serve the Birmingham Snow Hill to Worcester Line. The high level line passes over the low level line at a right angle on a bridge. West Midlands Railway manages the station and operates most of its services, with others provided by Chiltern Railways and London Northwestern Railway. Running parallel to the low-level line is the Birmingham New Main Line canal. The high-level platform extends over the canal, and the line Northbound quickly passes over a surviving section of the higher Old Main Line. It is an important interchange; over 600,000 people changed trains at the station during 2019/20.

Chance Brothers and Company was a glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands (formerly in Staffordshire), in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassmaking technology. The Chance family originated in Bromsgrove in Worcestershire as farmers and craftsmen, before setting up business in Smethwick in 1822. Situated between Birmingham and the Black Country in the agglomeration of the Midlands industrial heartland, they took advantage of the skilled workers, canals and many advances that were taking place in the industrial West Midlands at the time. Throughout its almost two centuries of history many changes affected the company which, now in private ownership, continues to function as Chance Glass Limited, a specialised industrial glass manufacturer in Malvern, Worcestershire at one of its small subsidiary factories. The social and economic impact of the company on the region is the subject of a project sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The Galton Bridge is a cast-iron bridge in Smethwick, near Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Opened in 1829 as a road bridge, the structure has been pedestrianised since the 1970s. It was built by Thomas Telford to carry a road across the new main line of the Birmingham Canal, which was built in a deep cutting. The bridge is 70 feet (21 metres) above the canal, making it reputedly the highest single-span arch bridge in the world when it was built, 26 feet (7.9 metres) wide, and 150 feet (46 metres) long. The iron components were fabricated at the nearby Horseley Ironworks and assembled atop the masonry abutments. The design includes decorative lamp-posts and X-shaped bracing in the spandrels. In the 1840s, a railway bridge was built from one of the abutments, with a parapet in keeping with the original. The Galton Bridge carried traffic for over 140 years until it was bypassed by a new road, named Telford Way, in the 1970s, and now carries only pedestrians and cyclists. The bridge is one of six built by Telford that share common design features and the only one still standing without modification. It underwent minor repair work in the 1980s, after which it was repainted from its original black into a colour scheme intended to enhance its features. It is maintained by the Canal and River Trust and lends its name to the nearby Smethwick Galton Bridge railway station. It is a grade I listed building.

Londonderry is a residential area of Oldbury and Smethwick, on the B4182 road, in the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough, in the English county of West Midlands. Londonderry (commonly referred to as Queen's Head due to the pub of the same name) features a small commercial area, with a post office, the former Queen's Head public house, and a number of small shops and takeaway restaurants. Not far away, on the corner of Basons Lane and Victoria Road, stood the public house, The Londonderry, until its closing and demolition in 2009. In 2016 construction began to renovate The Queen's Head pub into a private veterinary clinic. A church, playing field, are in the area and West Smethwick Park nearby. The Sandwell Aquatics Centre off Londonderry Lane hosted swimming and diving for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Spon Lane Junction (grid reference SP003898) is the original junction of the Wednesbury Canal and the Birmingham Canal, near Oldbury in the West Midlands, England.

Galton Junction is a minor junction on the West Coast Main Line's Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line. With Smethwick Junction, it allows northbound trains from the RBS to join the Birmingham to Worcester via Kidderminster Line in a westbound direction and vice versa. Until the re-opening of Birmingham Snow Hill for stations to Kidderminster, in 1995, all passenger services routed via Galton and Smethwick Junctions to reach Birmingham New Street. With this re-opening, use of the junction has sharply decreased. This was compounded with the removal of the remaining services between Worcester and New Street in May 2004, and now only selected freight services and charter trains use the junction. It has also been used as a way to divert trains to Cheltenham Spa via Stourbridge Junction and Worcester Shrub Hill. In addition, the first and last CrossCountry services of the day to/from Cardiff Central, which start and terminate at New Street, use this junction for operational reasons.