Distance: 3.7 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk across the south west Staffordshire countryside from Wombourne via the unusual survivial that is Penn Common, up the Midlands Watershed Ridge to the Black Country town of Sedgley.

The Story

Route Notes

Getting Back

The Black Country’s Last Common

Penn Common lies just south of the leafy suburb of Penn in south west Wolverhampton. It is situated in the rural salient which sticks out of South Staffordshire district into the north western Black Country near Sedgley. Just to the south of Penn Common lies the distended village of Gospel End the nearest substantial settlement to Baggeridge Country Park created on the site of Baggeridge Colliery the Black Country coalfield’s final deep coal mine which closed in 1968.

Penn Common is a remnant of an even older Black Country, indeed what the area was like before the Black Country. More or less uniquely on the western side of West Midlands county, to the east several little scraps of common land survive above Walsall, most substantially at Pelsall, Penn Common remains common land.

Back in the early medieval period the land was part of the grant made by the Mercian monarchy to Lady Wulfrun from whom Wolverhampton takes its name. The land was then for centuries collectively managed by farmers from the surrounding rural settlements who used it for grazing, growing crops, scouring for firewood, and similar traditional shared rural farmsteading practices.

As the Black Country became one of the crucibles of the industrial revolution much of its common land became enclosed for coal mining and other industrial practices. To the west of the Midlands Watershed ridge the Earls of Dudley held great sway constructing a private industrial empire linked by canals and railway lines. It was they who enclosed much of the area’s commons including Pensett Chase, one a vast tract of wooded common land, which was enclosed for coal mining and clay and limestone quarrying, but which here and there, like around Barrow Hill just west of Russell Hall, clings on as open space.

Penn Common by contrast remained enclosed. During the 19th Century it became a popular daytripping destination with people leaving the Black Country to walk, play sports and picnic on the open land. Numerous pubs, most of which are now long shut, grew up around the common land to slake their thirst. A brewery, Lloyd’s brewery, in the mid-Victorian tower style, which persists at Hook Norton and Bishop’s Castle, was constructed on the southern edge of Penn Common in 1860. The main building remains now adapted into flats.

Later in the 19th Century in 1892 Penn Common’s primary current use came into effect when the commoners with the agreement of the Earls of Dudley entered into an agreement with a golf club to construct a golf course on the land. Prior to the golf club a racecourse stood in the centre of the common adding to the sense of it being a weekend and bank holiday resort for daytrippers. 

Penn Golf Club, whose current iteration was founded in 1908, continues to occupy the land, paying rent towards the land’s improvement, and jointly managing the area with the commoners to this day. The common is marked on Ordnance Survey as open access land and is ringed and crossed by clear footpaths. However, due to the popularity of the golf club it is prudent to be careful when walking across it.

Route Notes

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 Wombourne to Sedgley via Penn Common begins from the centre of Wombourne near the village green.

Upon alighting the bus in the village centre turn left and walk along Church Road past Wombourne’s Anglican parish church of St. Benedict Biscop, and two pubs The Vine and the Old Bush.

Past the pubs you reach the edge of the village and gain your first site of the hillier country which runs up to the Midlands Watershed Ridge just inside West Midlands county.

Soon you near the A449 which here runs along the eastern edge of Wombourne linking Kingswinford to the south with Wolverhampton to the north.

Here you turn right, walking along a little residential road paralleling the A449, crossing over the Wom Brook which shares its name with the village.

Soon on your left there is a footpath which leads to a point where you can cross the A449 clambering over a stile across the crash barrier in the middle of the central reservation.

Crossing the far side of the carriageway you pick up a well worn path running uphill towards an isolated old house.

Beside the house you cross a stile and follow a path which winds gently uphill.

From the top of the hill to the right you can see the long, prominent ridge of the Abberley Hills in northern Worcestershire to the right. From here you descend to reach the western edge of Woody Park, the westernmost flank of Baggeridge Country Park.

Entering the woodland you pass some ruined buildings and continue along the northern edge of the woods to reach a meadow.

Crossing the meadow, turn left down a farm track. This is not marked as an officially designated footpath on Ordnance Survey, instead being listed as a customary path.

Soon you reach the side of the busy A463 where cars hurtle down from the Black Country into Staffordshire and vice versa. 

Taking care as you approach a sharp bend which cars travel fast around you approach a footpath onto a field to the left.

Before reaching the bend, take care, cross the road and clamber over the stile into the field.

Descend the field towards a farm which is used for parking campervans, and cross the brook at the bottom of the field by means of a tickety bridge.

Follow the clearly marked footpath up the bank past the farm to reach the edge of Penn Common and the golf club which occupies it.

Turn right and follow the road, or the footpath which runs around the edge of Penn Common until you reach Penn Road which runs past the cluster of houses that forms the hamlet of Penn Common.

You pass the former Lloyd’s Brewery building, now flats, and taking care cross the road to the eastern half of the common, where you pick up the road or the path along the southern edge, once more.

Presently the road finishes and you turn right onto a well worn, but tree ensnared path along the southern edge of the common.

Turning right you follow a well worn, steep, muddy path down to reach Penn Brook.

Cross Penn Brook which has no bridge, but is shallow in most conditions, with pebble banks in the middle of the stream, running across it, and ascend the steep Red Lane on the far side.

Walk uphill along Red Lane for some distance, presently it turns from a track into a paved road.

Soon on the right there is a steep well worn path running uphill to the western edge of Sedgley.

Nearing the first houses in the town you cross from Staffordshire into West Midlands county and emerge onto a suburban road.

Upon reaching the road turn left, then right and follow the suburban road uphill, ascending to the top of the Midlands Watershed ridge and approaching the town centre.

Soon you turn left, and ascend to Sedgley town centre, emerging beside the town’s branch of Wetherspoons in an old cinema, beside a roundabout.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

At the time of writing in February 2026 Sedgley was served by the very frequent National Express 1 service between Dudley and Wolverhampton. Dudley is a major regional bus hub with numerous services towards Birmingham and across the Black Country region and was soon due to be connected to the West Midlands Metro tram network. Wolverhampton is also a bus hub, has a mainline station and is on the Midlands Metro. Sedgley was also served by the reasonably frequent National Express bus 27 between Dudley and Wolverhampton. As well as several Diamond bus services to Bilston which is also on the West Midlands Metro. The nearest mainline station is at Coseley which was served half hourly by trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall via Birmingham New Street. Coseley is a short walk from Sedgley at the bottom of the Watershed Ridge while Sedgley is at the top.