Rowley Regis, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Rowley Regis, a village and a parish in Staffordshire. The village stands near the Birmingham and Dudley Canal,. 3 miles SE of Dudley, and has a station, called Rowley Regis and Blackheath, on the Birmingham and Stourbridge extension of the G.W.R. and L. & N.W.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Dudley. The parish contains-also the villages or townships of Blackheath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, and Tividale. Acreage, 3828; population of the civil parish, 30,791; of the ecclesiastical, 4957. The parish is governed by an urban district council, and is divided into five wards-Old Hill, returning four members to the council; Cradley Heath, four; Rowley Regis, three; Blackheath, two r and Tividale, two. It is the head of a petty sessional division; the offices of the council and the sessions-house are at Old Hill. The Rowley Hills diversify the surface, rice to an altitude of nearly 900 feet, and send off streams in opposite directions toward the Trent and the Severn. Coal, ironstone, building-stone, and excellent clay abound. Ironworks, steelworks, collieries, potteries, hardware manufactories, nail-works, agricultural implement works, tile-kilns, and matting; establishments in various parts, give employment to the greater part of the population. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £432 with residence. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church was originally Early English, and was rebuilt in 1840, the tower being rebuilt in 1858. The nave was condemned as unsafe in 1894, and the church closed for worship. It is situated on the top of Rowley Hill, and contains a Norman font. Blackheath, Old Hill, Reddall Hill, and Tividale form separate ecclesiastical parishes. There are Baptist, New Connexion, and Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan chapels. See BLACK-HEATH, CRADLEY HEATH, OLD HILL, REDDALL HILL, and TIVIDALE.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Rowley Regis from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Rowley-Regis (St. Giles))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Staffordshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Rowley Regis are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Staffordshire newspapers online:

• Staffordshire Advertiser
• Tamworth Herald
• Lichfield Mercury
• Staffordshire Sentinel
• Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser

Villages, Hamlets, &c