Distance: 6 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Urban walk, largely along paved paths, pavements and canal towpaths, in the heart of the Black Country from Wednesbury to Wolverhampton via Bilston town centre.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
At West Midland County’s Apex
Purists who claim that only those parts of the region in which the hard black coal seam extends to the surface comprise the Black Country may quibble about this, but for most people Wolverhampton is the undisputed capital of the Black Country.
Situated at the apex of West Midlands county, Wolverhampton was for centuries a large town, but since 2000 when it was elevated as part of the UK’s celebrations to mark the millennium, it has officially been a city. The local government district which includes places like Bilston, which historically was a significant town in its own right, has a population of just over 260,000. This makes it the second smallest district in West Midlands county population wise after Solihull. And with a total area of less than thirty square miles Wolverhampton is by far the smallest of the seven metropolitan boroughs in the county.
Not unlike the other far larger cities in West Midlands county Coventry and Birmingham, Wolverhampton has historically had a far more varied economic history than many of the smaller towns in its southern and eastern hinterland. However, being an early medieval foundation by the rulers of Mercia, who established an abbey there, so the tradition runs, in 659, its history has far more in common with other towns in historical south Staffordshire like Wednesbury and Tamworth, than the other cities of West Midlands county.
In the 12th Century in common with many other modern day towns in the Midlands and England more widely, Wolverhampton established a market. Though it was not legally regularised with a market charter until 1258. Later in the 14th and 15th Centuries when England’s wool trade was at its height the town was a major centre for trading and initial processing of the product, something reflected in Wolverhampton’s coat of arms to this day. Unusually St. Peter’s Collegiate Church which remains to this day, the principal Anglican church in the centre of Wolverhampton, had an ecclesiastical governance arrangement during the middle ages which placed it outside both the Diocese of Lichfield and the Province of Canterbury. This was due to its status as a royal chapel and it was officially termed a “peculiar”.
During the Early Modern period Wolverhampton, now emerging as a centre for the brass trade and lockmaking, suffered two great fires. The first was in 1590 and left 700 people, a substantial proportion of the town’s population at the time, homeless. The second was just over a century later in 1696 and saw over sixty houses in the town destroyed.
The tumult of the Early Modern period intruded upon Wolverhampton in other ways too. In January 1606 two farmers from Rowley Regis Thomas Smart and John Holyhead, were executed, subjected to the traitor’s death of hanging drawing and quartering in the town, for sheltering the Gunpowder Plotters Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton.
In the second half of the 18th Century the area that now comprises Wolverhampton became a major node in the canal network. The Birmingham Canal Navigation, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, Wyerley and Essington and the Shropshire Union Canal all converge and intersect within the city’s modern boundaries. The railways reached Wolverhampton relatively early too, with a first station opening in 1837.
During the Victorian era and for much of the 20th Century Wolverhampton was an industrially and commercially successful centre, the dominant centre for the north of what is now West Midlands county. Wealth created by the workers in Wolverhampton’s industries like paint making was used to create Wightwick Manor in the north west of the city, a key site now a prominent part of the National Trust’s offer, which is a honeypot site for devotees of Pre-Raphaelite artwork and design.
Remarkably, the traffic lights in Wolverhampton’s Prince’s Square, while modern now, were installed nearly a century ago in 1927. They are understood to be the first automatic traffic lights installed in the UK. A few years later in 1934 the first pedestrian safety barriers were installed along the road sides in the square. Both pieces of street furniture attesting to the rising volume of traffic of the centre of Wolverhampton at the time.
Wolverhampton’s relative prosperity carried on into the post-war era lasting up until the late 1970s or early 1980s. The area’s need for workers drew in migrants from across the world including central and eastern Europe in the years immediately after World War II, and a little later in larger numbers from South Asia and the Caribbean. Today around a quarter of the city’s population are either migrants or descended from migrants from South Asia, in particular the Punjab and also Gujarat, though in many cases migrants from those regions came via East Africa where they had settled previously. Wolverhampton alongside Smethwick In eastern Sandwell and Southall in north west London are amongst the primary centres of Punjab settlement outside of South Asia. Something celebrated by projects like Black Country Visual Arts Apna Heritage Archive which has been created from the family photographs of those who migrated from the Punjab during the post-war period.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk from Wednesbury to Wolverhampton begins from the Great Western Road West Midlands Metro stop on the western edge of Wednesbury town centre. It is only a couple of hundred metres down the road from the town’s bus station next to Wednesbury’s branch of Morrison’s.
Upon exiting the Metro stop turn left walking away from Wednesbury town centre down a wide side road flanked with offices and warehouses.
At the bottom of the road there is a cut through to your left leading down to the side of the A41 just south of a roundabout.
Upon reaching the pavement running alongside the A41 turn left and follow the pavement a short distance underneath the Metro line.
A little way beyond the bridge approaching another roundabout cross over to the right hand side of the road.
Here turn right down another road, the A4037 running past some modern warehouses or factory units.
Continue along the A4037 a short distance until you reach a point where the road runs slightly uphill.
At the top of the rise you cross the Walsall Canal. On the other side of the bridge turn right and walk down a sloping walkway to the canalside.
Here keep walking straight and continue along the line of the Walsall Canal.
A little further on, nearing Wednesbury, at a footbridge, the towpath switches sides. Moving from the left hand bank to the right hand bank.
Shortly after this you pass beneath a dark blue, almost purple painted bridge carrying the Midland Metro overhead.
This lies near the boundary between the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell and the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall.
Just over the boundary in the Walsall suburb of Moxley, part of Darlaston, you pass through an area of nature reserve known as Moorcroft Wood.
This section of towpath forms part of the genuinely quite bonkers Monarch’s Way long distance footpath, which stretches for 625 miles around much of western central England, comprising the route that the future Charles II took to escape Parliament’s forces seeking to arrest him following the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
Presently you come to a footbridge across the canal where you leave the waterway. Head up the ramp to the top of the bridge and turn left to cross it.
The bridge leads out onto the side of the busy A4444 road.
There is a crossing here which you use to cross the road.
On the far side keep walking straight ahead down the mouth of a residential road.
Off on the right there is a footpath, festooned with fly tipping waste or burst bin bags when I walked the route, which you turn onto.
The path leads straight across a patch of waste land, it forms part of the boundary between the Metropolitan Boroughs of Walsall and Wolverhampton.
Partway across the waste ground there is a path off to the left up a steep bank which may be a slag heap or demolition waste.
The top of the mound is flat. At the top head to the right, walking right across it.
On the far side you follow the path down the far side of the bank. Near the base of the bank there is a gap in a fence which leads out onto the side of the road connecting units on an industrial estate. It is relatively tricky to navigate the gap in the fence which is not ideal as the path across the wasteland, while ill kempt is an official right of way according to Ordnance Survey.
Once on the road through the industrial estate turn left and walk a short distance.
Soon on the right there is a road running through the middle of the industrial estate towards a main road.
Upon reaching the main road turn right. Continue walking up the road passing underneath a road bridge carrying to busy A463.
A little way after the bridge there is a junction where several residential roads converge with the main road you are walking along.
Here cross the road then turn left down the road furthest to the left.
Keep on walking along this residential road lined with a mixture of mid-20th Century, Victorian terraces and more contemporary houses and flats, as well as commercial units for quite some distance.
Presently you approach the edge of Bilston town centre besides the roundabout where the A41 and A463 converge. Here turn right and walk uphill towards the centre of Bilston.
At the top of the road next to a little park turn left and walk down a pedestrianised walkway to the main road through central Bilston.
Once besides the road turn right, cross the road at a set of traffic lights, then turn right again.
Continue walking a little further passing some grand current and former civic buildings including Bilston’s 1872 town hall then turn left onto a road running towards Bilston markets.
Passing the Midlands Metro stop in the centre of Bilston you enter the town’s busy pedestrianised shopping area.
Keep walking through the pedestrianised shopping area until you reach a road on the right where the Aston Cafe stands.
Turn right here and walk straight along the road heading out of Bilston town centre. Continue along the road for quite some distance as it leads away from the middle of Bilston.
Presently you pass a park and cross the Midlands Metro line via a bridge.
Continue walking straight along the road for quite some distance.
Presently you pass a campus of Wolverhampton College and cross a petrol station forecourt continuing along the road.
Having crossed a couple of side streets you pass a Burger King drive thru and approach the Priestfield Midland Metro stop.
Just after the Burger King and just before you reach the Metro stop there is a path running off to the right onto a mixed used path which runs along the course of an old railway line. Turn right and begin walking along the mixed used path.
After some distance along the mixed use path you come to a set of steps and a ramp which lead up onto a road.
At the top of the steps beside the road, cross over the road and head back down to the other half of the mixed youth path down a corresponding set of steps and a ramp.
Once back on the mixed use path, continue walking straight ahead.
Presently you reach the end of the mixed use path which runs up onto the side of a road in an industrial estate and warehouse area on the edge of Wolverhampton city centre.
On the side of the road take a slight right, then turn left onto a wider road.
Once on this wide road keep walking straight passing a series of warehouse units and industrial estates approaching the ring road which bounds Wolverhampton city centre.
Reaching the edge of the industrial estate, continue walking straight ahead passing a smattering of houses, then leaving the road to follow a footpath across a small landscaped area to reach the side of an access road for the Wolverhampton inner ring road.
Taking care as you do so, cross the road, then head to the left down a footpath leading to an underpass which leads into a sunken island at the centre of a roundabout.
Upon reaching the island turn right and through another underpass, up a ramp to the left into the city centre.
Continue walking straight along the road to access the city centre. This is where Wolverhampton’s main shopping areas and sites like St. Peter’s Collegiate Church and Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery are situated.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Wolverhampton is well served by public transport. Buses run frequently from the centre of Wolverhampton to outlying Black Country towns and suburbs including back towards Wednesbury, towards Dudley, Walsall and Birmingham, as well as places like Stourbridge and West Bromwich. Destinations in Staffordshire and Shropshire like Bridgnorth are also served by bus from Wolverhampton. The Midlands Metro runs back towards Birmingham via Bilston, Wednesbury and West Bromwich. While trains also head back towards Birmingham, as well as north towards Manchester, Stoke, Stafford, Crewe and further north, and south towards Coventry, London and elsewhere, as well as north west towards Telford, Shrewsbury and central and northern Wales.