Rowley Regis - History

History

The history of Rowley Regis began in the 12th century, when a small village grew around the parish church of St. Giles, approximately two miles south-east of Dudley. It began to develop as a town between the two world wars, when thousands of privately owned and local authority houses were built in the surrounding area. During that time, Rowley Regis became a borough and incorporated the neighbouring communities of Blackheath, Old Hill and Cradley Heath. These places were all within the ancient parish of Rowley Regis, which (despite being in the county of Staffordshire) was in the diocese of Worcester. The parish contained the manors of Rowley Regis and Rowley Somery, the latter being part of the barony of Dudley, but the extents of these manors and the relationship between them are not clear.

The village sits on Rowley Hill, which makes up part of the Rowley Hills famed for the quarrying of Rowley Rag Stone.

The present St Giles Church on Church Road is not the first church. It was designed by Holland W. Hobbiss and A. S. Dixon and was built in 1923. The previous church, built in 1904, was burned down in 1913 by Suffragettes campaigning for the vote in extreme ways. Prior to that, the second church, built in 1840, was found to be unsafe and condemned in 1900.

Rowley Regis Urban District Council was formed in 1894 to include Rowley Regis, Blackheath, Cradley Heath and Old Hill. The UDC received Municipal Borough status in 1933. Following the acquisition of borough status, plans were unveiled to build new council offices in the borough to replace the existing offices in Lawrence Lane, Old Hill. A site on the corner of Halesowen Road and Barrs Road was selected, with working commencing in October 1937 and the building being completed in December 1938.

In 1966, the borough of Rowley Regis merged with the borough of Oldbury and Smethwick county borough to form Warley County Borough and became part of Worcestershire. Eight years later, in 1974, on the formation of the West Midlands Metropolitan county, Warley merged with West Bromwich County Borough to form Sandwell Metropolitan Borough. It is now right in the core of the West Midlands conurbation.

Following the demise of Rowley Regis as a borough in 1966, the council offices in Barrs Road were retained by Warley council and then by Sandwell council. However, a plan was submitted in July 2012 by Sandwell Leisure Trust to demolish the buildings to make way for an expansion to the neighbouring Haden Hill Leisure Centre, with part of the site also to be developed as a new fire station.

Rowley Regis railway station opened in 1867 in the south of the then village, and remains in use to this day.

The town's grammar school was opened on Hawes Lane in September 1962. The school's well-known former pupils include Pete Williams (original bass player with Dexys Midnight Runners) and actress Josie (born Wendy) Lawrence. In 1974, when grammar and secondary modern schools were replaced with comprehensive schools in Sandwell, the grammar school became Rowley Regis Sixth Form College. The last intake of grammar school pupils having been inducted the previous year. In 2003, it became an annexe of Dudley College but this arrangement last just one year before the buildings fell into disuse. It was demolished three years later and the site was redeveloped as the new Rowley Learning Campus under Sandwell's Building Schools for the Future programme, comprising St Michael's Church of England High School, Westminster Special School and Whiteheath Education Centre, which opened in September 2011.