Blakenall Heath is a suburban village in the

Metropolitan Borough of Walsall The Metropolitan Borough of Walsall is a metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Walsall, but covers a larger area which also includes Aldridge, Bloxwich, Brownhills, Darlaston, Pelsall ...

in the

West Midlands County West Midlands is a metropolitan county in the West Midlands Region, England, with a 2021 population of 2,919,600, making it the second most populous county in England after Greater London. It was created in 1974 by the Local Government Act ...

, England. It straddles the border of

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands County, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east of Wolverhampton and from Lichfield. Walsall is th ...

and

Bloxwich Bloxwich is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is located between the towns of Walsall, Cannock, Willenhall and Brownhills. Early history Bloxwich has its origins at least as early as ...

. Historically the village was a part of

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

. It was originally a rural area between Walsall and Bloxwich with a small amount of private housing as recently as the beginning of the 20th century, but the area began to change dramatically after the end of the Great War. Farmland gave way to

council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...

, which surrounded the local church and a few pre-1914 buildings, and further developments took place over the next few decades. Walsall borough's first council house was completed in Blakenall Heath, on Blakenall Lane, in June 1920. Within seven years, 500 council houses had been built in the area, and by 1939 around 2,000 new council houses had been built in the Blakenall Heath, Harden, Coal Pool and Goscote areas. Several hundred more had followed by the 1970s, including three tower blocks of flats which were built in the late 1950s, as well as maisonettes in Walker Road which were built in the 1960s but quickly became unpopular with tenants as well as proving a magnet for crime, and were in demolished in 1985. The early council housing developments were divided between established neighbourhoods including Blakenall Lane and Harden Road, and new housing estates with themed street names; including the 1930s Poet's Estate at Harden (where road names included Shakespeare Crescent, Goldsmith Road and Tennyson Road) and the Green Rivers Estate at Blakenall Heath itself (where road names included Thames Road, Wye Road and Mersey Road) which was built in the 1940s and 1950s. Blakenall Heath is the centre of the Blakenall ward of Walsall, which has traditionally had some of the highest poverty and crime rates in the

. Blakenall also includes neighbouring Harden, Goscote and

Coal Pool Coal Pool is a housing estate in Walsall, West Midlands, England. Most of the homes in area were built by the local council during the 1930s, with a smaller development taking place in the late 1940s which marked the resumption of council house bu ...

. Between 2001 and 2006, some of the council housing around Blakenall Heath was demolished, including the whole of Taylor Avenue, the three late 1950s tower blocks, and large sections of Walker Road and Barracks Lane. Demolition has also taken place in neighbouring Harden and Goscote. New housing for the public and private sector has since been built in the place of the demolished council houses and flats. The parish church for Blakenall Heath is Christ Church, which is constructed from limestone and opened in 1872.

Gallery

File:Christ Church, Blakenall Heath - geograph.org.uk - 1213584.jpg, Christ Church File:Blakenall Lane, Blakenall Heath - geograph.org.uk - 1213597.jpg, Blakenall Lane, Blakenall Heat File:Blakenall Heath road junction - geograph.org.uk - 2683216.jpg, Blakenall Heath road junction in 1970

References

{{WestMidlands-geo-stub Areas of the West Midlands (county) Walsall