- Quarry Bank
Quarry Bank is a small town in the
Metropolitan Borough of Dudley , West Midlands,England . Locally, the name is often pronounced, "Quarry Bonk" (In Black Coountry Dialect) [http://www.blackcountrybugle.co.uk The Black Country Bugle local newspaper]Originally the area was a remote part of the
parish ofKingswinford , included inPensnett Chase . The earliest settlements in Quarry Bank were smallholdings, where an industrial worker such as a nailer lived. Early industrial development took place the early 17th century around theCradley Forge .Quarry Bank acquired its own parish status in September 1844. It had an urban sanitory authority and so became an
urban district ofStaffordshire from 1894. However in 1934, it amalgamated with theBrierley Hill urban district. This became part of thecounty borough ofDudley in 1966 and then theMetropolitan Borough of Dudley in West Midlands since 1974.Quarry Bank has become greatly affected by the adjacent
Merry Hill Shopping Centre which has bought high volumes of traffic along the High Street. This has meant demolition of a number of homes, the closure of the top end of the formerHigh Street (now Sun Street) and construction of a new replacement section of High Street to try and cope with traffic.An unusual feature of Quarry Bank is its long steep High Street, hence "Bank", which slopes from the bottom end where it meets the neighbouring town of
Cradley to the top at the junction with Thorns Road. Clinging to the hillside and varying from very steep to almost flat, it has changed little, except for modernisation of shop fronts. Major retail chains have bypassed the town, leaving just small independent traders andpublic houses .References
*"Britain in Old Photographs:Quarry Bank" by Ned Williams & Mount Pleasant History Group, Sutton Publishing 1998, ISBN 0-7509-1988-4
*"What's Happened to Quarry Bank?" by Ned Williams & Mount Pleasant Local History Group, Uralia Press, 1999, ISBN 1-898528-06-3
External links
* [http://www.blackcountrybugle.co.uk The Black Country Bugle local newspaper]
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