Tipton Catastrophe

Tividale Quays is a residential area of Tipton in the West Midlands, England, centred on Monins Avenue. It was developed in the early 1990s on derelict and former industrial land in the Tividale area of the town. The area consists of one- and two-bedroom flats, one- and two-bedroom starter homes, three-bedroom semi-detached and detached houses as well as four-bedroom three-storey houses. Part of the estate surrounds a canal basin—which is part of Dudley Port on located on Birmingham Old Main Line canal— was exploited to develop a "quayside" atmosphere. The development of Tividale Quays was one of the first of many housing developments to help improve Tipton's reputation.The basin, and the canal side quays either side of the entrance to the basin, have mooring rings that are used by visiting narrowboats. The basin is regularly used by fishing clubs in the West Midlands and the surrounding area, with tournaments and competitions taking place on a regular basis. Surrounding streets include Monins Avenue, St Michaels Way and Wyn-Griffith Drive.

Dudley Port railway station serves the Dudley Port and Great Bridge areas of Tipton, West Midlands, England, Situated on the Stour Valley Line \ Rugby–Birmingham–Stafford line the station is operated by West Midlands Railway.

Tividale is a district of the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, West Midlands. It straddles the borders of the towns of Dudley, Tipton, Oldbury.

Victoria Park is a public park situated in Tipton, West Midlands (formerly Staffordshire), England. It is Grade II listed with the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.It was opened on 29 July 1901 and named in honour of Queen Victoria, who had died in January of that year. 860 people in the Tipton area had signed a petition in 1893 for the development of a town park, and after sufficient donations and funding had been made available, development of the park was underway during 1899, although it was not fully complete until just after the official opening.[1] It was situated on Randalls Lane, Tipton Green, which was promptly renamed Victoria Road. Substantial housing development took place in the vicinity over the next 40 years and most of the houses are still in existence. The park includes a large lake, tennis courts, children's play area and a Cenotaph which was erected in 1921 in memory of the Tipton men who fallen in the Great War. The names of the Second World War dead were added after that conflict ended in 1945. A park keeper's bungalow was erected in the 1930s but had fallen into disuse by 1990, finally being demolished in 2005. Tipton Harriers hold a 5k road race every November in the park.

Tividale Football Club is a football club based in Tividale, near Dudley, West Midlands, England. They were established in 1954. In the 2011–12 season, under the management of Dean Whitehouse, they reached the 5th round of the FA Vase, the furthest the club has progressed in the competition. They won the Midland Football Alliance in 2013–14. They now play in the Midland League Premier Division, having been relegated from the Northern Premier League Division One South at the end of the 2015–16 season.

Smethwick Rangers Football Club is a football club based in Smethwick, West Midlands, England. They are members of the Midland League Division One and play at the Trevor Brown Memorial Ground in Boldmere, groundsharing with Boldmere St Michaels.

Oldbury United Football Club is a football club representing Oldbury, West Midlands, England. They are currently members of the West Midlands (Regional) League Division Two.

West Bromwich West is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Shaun Bailey, a member of the Conservative Party.Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat will be subject to major boundary changes as a result of the realignment of the boundary between this seat and West Bromwich East, resulting in the loss of the Oldbury and Tividale wards in exchange for the Friar Park and Hateley Heath wards. The reconfigured seat will also include the Borough of Dudley ward of Coseley East from Wolverhampton South East and will be renamed Tipton and Wednesbury, to be first contested at the next general election.

The Tipton Green Branch and Toll End Branch (or Toll End Communication Canal) were narrow canals comprising part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations near Tipton (formerly in Staffordshire), West Midlands, England. These canals no longer exist.

Q3 Academy Tipton is a coeducational secondary school located in Tipton in the West Midlands of England.

Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal, in the West Midlands county, England, is part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, (BCN). It was constructed at a 453–foot elevation, the Wednesbury or Birmingham level; it has no locks. The total length of the branch canal is 2.4 miles (3.9 km) and the canal tunnel is 9,081 feet (2,768 m) long. Netherton Tunnel was the last canal tunnel to be built in Britain during the Canal Age. The first sod was turned by the Lord Ward on 31 December 1855 and the canal opened on 20 August 1858, providing a waterway connection between the Black Country towns of Netherton and Tipton. It was built to relieve the bottleneck of the adjacent Dudley Tunnel which is very narrow, has alternating blocks of one-way working, and had waiting times of eight hours or more, and sometimes several days. The Netherton tunnel was built with a width of 27 feet (8.2 m) to allow two-way working of narrowboats; and is brick lined throughout. It has towpaths running through it, one on each side, which enabled horse-drawn narrowboats to be pulled through it. Chainage (distance) markers are still visible on the Eastern wall. The tunnel was fitted, from the start, with gas lighting over the towpaths, though this was later converted to electricity and it is now unlit. The air vents that run along the line of the tunnel and provide ventilation, and a shaft of light into the canal, are known by the locals as "pepper pots", because of their shape. They are brick-lined and the openings are covered by an iron frame or grill. The wide bore and good ventilation mean that boats using the tunnel today are allowed to use the power of their internal combustion engines, which is prohibited in the narrower Dudley Tunnel. The tunnel cost £302,000 as opposed to the £238,000 estimate prior to construction. The main reason for the project being overbudget was the extra works necessitated by the condition of the ground through which the tunnel passes.

Oakham is an area of Dudley, England, situated on the peak of Turners Hill, the highest point in the West Midlands county. All of the area was historically in Dudley but in 1966 approximately half of it, including the Tividale Hall and Grace Mary housing estates, was incorporated into the county borough of Warley (centred on the former boroughs of Oldbury, Smethwick and Rowley Regis), which in turn merged with West Bromwich in 1974 to form Sandwell. It was a largely rural area until the 1930s, when private and council housing developments took place around City Road, including the Grace Mary Estate (council housing). The Tividale Hall Estate was developed for private housing from the mid-1930s, but construction was halted due to the war effort around 1940. Both of these estates were expanded after the end of World War II in 1945, including the extension of Regent Road to link up with Oakham Road. "Big Bertha", an anti-aircraft gun, was erected at the top of the hill near City Road when World War II broke out in 1939. Although this gun proved useful in eliminating enemy aircraft, it also became an enemy target. The Oakham area fell victim to most of Dudley's air raids by the German Luftwaffe on 19 November 1940. These damaged several houses in City Road on the Grace Mary Estate and resulted in 10 civilian deaths as well as many injuries.On 21 December 1940, a stray shell from the anti-aircraft gun fell down the chimney of the Boat Inn one mile away in Dudley Road East, Tividale, resulting in 13 deaths and dozens of injuries. On 12 August 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped a landmine several hundreds yards from the gun in Birch Crescent, demolishing a pair of new semi-detached houses and severely damaging several others, leaving four people dead and several others injured. The gun was dismantled after the war ended in 1945, but several traces of it remain more than 70 years later. Oakham's most famous resident was George Smith, known as the Dudley Hangman. He was born in nearby Rowley Regis in 1805. In 1840 he became assistant to the executioner William Calcraft before being appointed as executioner for Staffordshire in his own right. He became notorious for entertaining customers in Black Country pubs with gruesome stories of his work. There was a pub in Oakham, now demolished, called the 'Hangman's Tree' which was named in George Smith's honour. It was demolished in 2007. Oakham Primary School has served the Sandwell section of Oakham since 1939, and was originally known as City Road Infant and Junior Schools. It now has 420 places for pupils aged 5–11 as well as a nursery unit for a total of 60 children aged 3 or 4 years. Grace Mary Primary is another primary school in the area, having opened in April 1959.