Birchills
Encyclopedia
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...
in the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
It is situated several hundred yards west of the town centre and is an established area containing many different housing types, though Victorian/Edwardian terraced houses and inter-war council houses are the most frequent type.
Reedswood Park
Reedswood Park
Reedswood Park is a public park situated in Walsall, West Midlands, England.It is surrounded by the residential areas of Birchills and Beechdale, and is about half a mile west of Walsall town centre....
is located in Birchills, as is Pouk Hill
Pouk Hill
Pouk Hill is a hill located in Walsall, West Midlands, England. It inspired the title of a Slade song during the 1970s, as lead singer Noddy Holder lived on the nearby Beechdale estate. The cover shot of Ambrose Slade's first album, Beginnings was taken here, in the snow...
- a hill which inspired a 1970s Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
song.
Birchills has an above average proportion of ethnic minorities living in it, mostly Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s.
Several tower blocks, built during the 1960s, are situated in the east of Birchills, near Walsall town centre. Murderer Raymond Leslie Morris was living in one of these flats with his wife at the time of his arrest on 4 November 1967.
A power station
Birchills Power Station
Birchills Power Station was a coal-fired power station near Walsall in the West Midlands, England.-History:The first power station on the site was built for Walsall Corporation. Work began in 1914, and electricity was being generated by 1916, although the project was not officially completed until...
was opened in the north of Birchills in 1949, just a few years before the Beechdale
Beechdale
Beechdale, originally named Gypsy Lane Estate, is a housing estate in Walsall, England, that was developed predominantly during the 1950s and 1960s....
council estate was developed at the far side. This power station served the Walsall area for 33 years until its closure in October 1982, although it was not demolished until March 1987. The site of the power station was redeveloped for housing and commerce during the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
.