Ocker Hill railway station

Ocker Hill is a residential area of Tipton in the West Midlands of England.

Tame Valley Junction (grid reference SO976936), also known as Doe Bank Junction, is a canal junction at the western limit of the Tame Valley Canal where it meets the Walsall Canal, south of Walsall, in the West Midlands, England.

Wednesbury Parkway tram stop is a tram stop in Wednesbury, Sandwell, England. It was opened on 31 May 1999 and has park and ride facilities. It is situated on West Midlands Metro Line 1. The stop has a third track alongside running into the tram depot which is a short distance east. It also has a third platform on this track, for services terminating or starting here.

Ocker Hill Power Station was situated at Ocker Hill in Tipton, Staffordshire, at a point where the Walsall Canal intersected the L&NWR Wednesbury to Princes End railway line. It was opened in 1902 by the Midland Electric Corporation for Power Distribution Limited (MEC) and supplied electricity at 7 kV two phase 50 Hz to much of the Black Country. At the time of its building it was stated by the Stourbridge County Express that it was planned to be the largest power station in England. Although this may have been the original intention, it was never achieved.

Galton Village is a residential area of Smethwick, West Midlands, England. It takes its name from the iconic nearby Galton Bridge that was named after local business man Samuel Galton whose land the new BCN Main Line (lower level) canal was built through, the canal runs behind Galton Village as does the Stour Valley section of West Coast Mainline. The Oldbury Road runs through the area which begins next to Smethwick’s Galton Bridge railway station and ends at Spon Lane, next to a small shopping centre. The original housing estate on the site of Galton Village, built by the new County Borough of Warley council in the late 1960s, was known as the West Smethwick Estate. This estate consisted of maisonettes and flats which were made from concrete, and earned it the nickname "Concrete Jungle". By the 1980s, many of the flats were empty or in disrepair, and the estate was blighted by unemployment and crime. At the beginning of the 1990s, Sandwell MBC decided to demolish the estate. Between 1992 and 1997, the estate was completely redeveloped. The swathe of concrete buildings had been cleared to make way for modern and attractive low-rise housing. The West Smethwick Estate title was abandoned in favour of Galton Village. Just to the south of Galton Village is West Smethwick and its park; the area sits on the border with West Bromwich to the north and Oldbury to the west. As stated above, the Oldbury Road runs through its heart; this is a collective main thoroughfare the A457 from Birmingham. It is not to be confused with the Galton council estate in neighbouring Oldbury, which was developed during the 1920s and 1930s.

Gospel Oak School (formerly The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Academy and Willingsworth High School) is one of the new academies opened in England. The school's history dates back to September 1958, when Willingsworth Secondary Modern School to serve the Ocker Hill and Princes End areas of Tipton, replacing a smaller secondary modern at Ocker Hill and gaining comprehensive status in September 1969, when it became Willingsworth High. It became the RSA Academy in September 2008 and moved into its current buildings in September 2010, with the old buildings being demolished the following spring. It was one of the seven schools in the RSA Family of Academies, all in the West Midlands, of the Royal Society of Arts.In September 2021, the school was renamed Gospel Oak School after the Royal Society of Arts renounced their association with the school.

Patent Shaft, formerly The Patent Shaft and Axletree Company, established in 1840, was a large steelworks situated in Wednesbury, West Midlands, England. It was in operation for 140 years. From the time of its opening, it employed hundreds of local people and was a key player in the Industrial Revolution that spread across the Black Country during the nineteenth century, and gave the region its iconic name. The metalwork for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfriars_Bridge in London was built by The Patent Shaft, following their takeover of Lloyds, Foster and Company. Sources include: https://charlessaumarezsmith.com/2017/10/31/blackfriars-bridge/ http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Wednesbury/PatentShaft1.htm 7th paragraph https://maierstorm.org/Vampire/index.php/Blackfriars_Bridge 4th paragraph https://www.blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB146_BS-PS_8_1 A decline in the manufacturing industry during the 1970s meant that even the largest factories were faced with threat of closure. Patent Shaft closed in 1980 after 140 years, resulting in hundreds of job losses. The factory buildings were demolished in 1983. In the decade following its closure, the Patent Shaft site was substantially transformed. The construction of the Black Country Spine Road between Bilston and West Bromwich opened up several square miles of previously inaccessible land in 1995. The Spine Road actually passed through the Patent Shaft site, and an Automotive Component Park was opened on another part of the site on 2 March 1993. This development - exclusively occupied by car component manufacturers - was the first of its kind in Europe. The Patent Shaft factory gates still exist, situated on a traffic island in Wednesbury at the junction of Holyhead Road and Dudley Street, having been moved from their original location around 30 years after the factory’s closure.The archives of Patent Shaft are held at Sandwell Community History and Archives Service.

Great Bridge North railway station was a station on the South Staffordshire Line that served the village of Great Bridge and town of Tipton in Staffordshire, England.

Great Bridge South railway station was a station on a link line between the South Staffordshire Line and the Birmingham Snow Hill-Wolverhampton Low Level Line. It served the village of Great Bridge and town of Tipton in Staffordshire, England. It was opened in 1866. As with many passenger stations, it closed during the years of the First World War but reopened in 1920 and remained operational until British Rail closed the station through the Beeching Axe in 1964. Despite another station existing in Great Bridge from 1866, the station was not given the name of South until after nationalisation in 1950. The station site is now a housing estate while much of the railway alignment was reused for the Black Country Spine Road.

Great Bridge is a historic village and district of Tipton in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell in the metropolitan county of the West Midlands, England. It is situated near the towns of Dudley, West Bromwich and Wednesbury.

The Bradley Branch or Bradley Locks Branch was a short canal of the Birmingham Canal Navigations in the West Midlands, England. Completed in 1849, it included nine locks, and had a number of basins which enabled it to service local collieries and industrial sites. The locks were unusual, as they had a single gate at both ends, rather than double gates at the bottom end. The route closed in the 1950s, and the top seven locks were covered over and landscaped. Since 2008, there have been calls for the branch to be reopened. In 2015 the results of a feasibility study for reopening were published, and the scheme was branded the Bradley Canal, since it would involve the restoration of the Bradley Branch and a connecting link from the top of the canal, using parts of the Wednesbury Oak Loop and the Rotton Brunt line. The plan has been spearheaded by the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust, rather than navigation interests, but there is an understanding that boats using the route will ensure that the many other benefits of reopening will be sustainable.

Wednesbury Central railway station was a station on the Great Western Railway's London Paddington to Birkenhead via Birmingham Snow Hill line. It was opened as Wednesbury in 1854 and was one of two stations serving Wednesbury in the West Midlands. It was renamed to Wednesbury Central in 1950 following nationalisation. It closed along with the Birmingham to Wolverhampton section of the line in 1972.