Birchills is a residential area of
Walsall
Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located ...
in the
West Midlands of
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The appropriate Walsall ward is Birchills Leamore. The population of this ward taken at the
2011 census was 14,775.
Geography
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.
Amenities
Reedswood Park is located in Birchills, as is
Pouk Hill - a hill which inspired a 1970s
Slade
Slade are a rock band formed in Wolverhampton, England in 1966. They rose to prominence during the glam rock era in the early 1970s, achieving 17 consecutive top 20 hits and six number ones on the UK Singles Chart. The '' British Hit Singl ...
song.
Demographics
At the 2021 census, the ward profile population was 16,024 which includes the nearby suburb of
Leamore. Of the findings, the ethnicity and religious composition of the ward was:
The religious composition of the ward at the 2021 Census was recorded as:
Transportation
Birchills formerly was served by Birchills railway station which was on the
Chase Line but closed in the 1930s.
Estates
Several tower blocks, built during the 1960s, are situated in the east of Birchills, near Walsall town centre. Murderer
Raymond Leslie Morris
The Cannock Chase murders (also known as the A34 murders, the Babes in the Ditch murders and the Half-Day murders) were the murders of three girls aged between five and seven in Staffordshire, England, between 1965 and 1967. The bodies of all th ...
was living in one of these flats with his wife at the time of his arrest on 4 November 1967.
Birchills Power Station
A
power station
A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...
was opened in the north of Birchills in 1949, just a few years before the
Beechdale
Beechdale, originally named Gypsy Lane Estate, is a housing estate in Walsall, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England, that was developed predominantly during the 1950s and 1960s.
Education
Beechdale Infant School ...
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.
References
Walsall
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