The high road from Walsall crosses here to Darlaston, (seen in the distance on the W.,) another town in the iron and coal district, and, according to tradition, the seat of Wulphere, king of Mercia, who put his two sons to death for embracing Christianity. On the hill at Berry Bank, are the remains of a large castle and entrenchments, and near by, a Barrow, which it were heresy to doubt were the residence and grave of this redoubtable personage. The chief manufactures of this, as of the neighbouring towns, consist of various iron and steel goods. The whole district is abundantly traversed by canals, tram-roads, &c., for the convenient conveyance of merchandise, and presents to the passing traveller less subject for praise in point of beauty, than for admiration and surprise, at the closely-placed engines, mills, coal-pits, iron-mines, and factories, which greet him on all sides, with hissing, curling volumes of white steam, or thick massy clouds of rolling smoke. Should the traveller journey through this strange neighbourhood by night, the novel and wild, not to say, grand, effect of the fires, must strike him forcibly. Huge furnaces glowing on the earth, from a dark wayside forge; tall chimneys, themselves not seen in the gloom, vomiting forth flames and fiery-coloured smoke, or a long range of glowing hillocks, where flickering blazes play from the charcoal burning within: add to these, the dusky figures of the men and boys employed in the works, and a stranger will have a scene before him, in which the “fearsome” is oddly enough blended with the grotesque.
In the distance, S.W. of the line, appear the Rowley Hills, a ridge of trap or basaltic rock, which, at the time of its elevation, upheaved and broke through the coal strata. The stone being hard and compact, the hills are quarried for paving flags, &c.
“The principal mass of these (trap rocks) occurs in the southern part of the county, overlying the coal-field which surrounds the town of Dudley. It there constitutes the material of a group of hills, beginning on the S. of that town, and terminating about half-way between Halesowen and Oldbury, a little beyond the village of Rowley. These hills consist of very pure basalt, which in the neighbourhood of Birmingham is called Rowley rag, because the village of Rowley is situated on one of these basalt hills; and this hill appears to the eye to be the highest of the whole range. These hills are all covered with soil; but quarries have been opened in many of them, and the basalt of which they are composed is employed for mending the roads. The streets of Birmingham are likewise paved with it. The columnar structure, though very frequent, is far from universal in this trap, which very commonly occurs in large spherical masses, decomposing on the surface into concentric layers. An amygdaloidal variety containing calcareous spar and zeolite occurs S. of Dudley. The highest point of the Rowley Hills is stated by Dr. Thompson to be 900 feet above the Thames at Brentford.”—Conybeare and Phillips’s Geology of England and Wales.
Passing through a cutting of considerable depth, we arrive at
Willenhall Station.
Distance to Birmingham, 12—Liverpool and Manchester, 85½ miles.
DISTANCES BY ROADS FROM THIS STATION TO THE FOLLOWING PLACES:—
Places W. ofStation. | Places E. ofStation. | ||
Bilston | 1½ mile | Bloxwich | 3 miles. |
Sedgley | 4¼ miles | Pelsall | 4¾ — |
Lower Gornal | 5¾ — |
| |
Himley | 7¼ — |
| |
The small town of Willenhall, at the period of the Norman survey, was called Winehala, the Saxon term for victory, probably from the great battle fought near it in 311. The village began to flourish in the reign of Elizabeth, when the iron manufacture was first established here: at present, it is noted for its collieries and flourishing trade in locks, and other articles of hardware. Population, about 5,900.
