2010 Summer Teaser

These evocative ruins have strong connections with France, Shropshire and Sedgley Manor. Name the site and find the local link. Send an email with your answers.

2010 Spring Teaser

We asked if you could identify the location of this postcard scene from just outside the Sedgley Manor boundary (a stark reminder of damage caused by industrial activity in the C19th and C20th).

The postcard, from around 1900, shows Himley’s Siden House [an old Black Country name for sunken house], earlier known as the Glynne Arms [after Sir Stephen the landowner] and today called The Crooked House. Built in 1765 [a disputed date] as a farmhouse it acquired its tilt in the mid C19th when coalmine workings collapsed. Life as a pub started around 1850.

Spotlight On – Albert House

Since the 1940s this building on Coseley’s Summerhill Road has been more familiar as a public house. Initially named the New Spread Eagle followed by Malone’s, then Sherlock Holmes and finally The Earl of Wessex. The last pint was pulled around 2008. Now [July 2010] a planning application proposes demolition to make way for a residential development.

The property is a splendid example of a Black Country ‘big’ house dating from the Victorian era. In Kelly’s Directory [1880] William Greenway, a local file maker, was recorded as the owner of Albert House. The family were important employers and benefactors. It stayed in family use into the 1930s. The recent photograph (above) shows the house retains a prominent elevated position on the streetscape and adds considerable character to Summerhill Road.

Notwithstanding the many alterations Albert House is still an imposing property and deserves to stay – possibly within a Conservation Area centred on Christ Church just two hundred yards away. In the meantime appropriate action should be taken to protect this landmark building from demolition. Here, at the very least, is an opportunity to integrate the present building into a more imaginative scheme than the one proposed.

To see Albert House in context try Google's Street View below.

Sedgley Local History Society [SLHS]

Sedgley Local History Society [SLHS] is a Black Country group based in the village of Sedgley, which is situated at the northern tip of Dudley Metropolitan Borough and just 3 miles south of the centre of Wolverhampton.

Here, the heritage of the Manor of Sedgley, in south Staffordshire, is focused through its nine villages - Sedgley, Gospel End, Cotwall End, Upper Gornal, Lower Gornal, Woodsetton, Coseley, Ettingshall and Brierley. A history of people, places and events.

Please contact us if you have any comments, suggestions, contributions or questions.