Tirupati Balaji

History

The village was in the parish of St Michael named after the church built there, it was created in 1878 as an extension of the town of Tipton in the county ofStaffordshire, England. It was originally set around the main Dudley to Oldbury road with several hundred terraced houses with shop fronts on the main road as well as many more on the side streets running off.

Tividale began to expand during the first half of the 20th century and was actually developed beyond Tipton's borders into Dudley, namely with the Tividale Hall Estate (private) and the Grace Mary Estate (council). After the Second World War, further housing developments, mostly by the local authority, saw these two housing estates effectively merged.

Tividale Tram workshops opened along the main Tividale Road (a tram route) in 1907, and remained open until 1930. The tramway along the road closed in 1939, as trams were phased out in favour of motor buses.

There were several air raids on Tividale during the Second World War, including a landmine which destroyed a pair of semi-detached houses on Birch Crescent (Tividale Hall) and air raids which wrecked several houses on the Grace Mary Estate.

The Netherton Tunnel runs under Tividale. Evidence of the tunnel is evidenced by the 'pepperpots' that can be seen near the site of the former Hangsmans Tree site and in Aston Road.

Several Quarries used to exist in the Tividale area used as a source of stone known as the 'Rowley rag'. Turner's Hill is the site of the only remaining quarry.

In 1966, Tipton became part of West Bromwich County Borough but Tividale was split between the boroughs of West Bromwich and Warley. Since 1974 it has been part of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands county.

^[1]== Quarrying ==

On the southern and eastern slopes of Turner's Hill a huge quarry exposes the brown and grey igneous rock, dolerite by name which, covering less than one square mile has given rise to one of the most distinctive minor regions within the Black Country. The dolerite occurs as a building stone in the older cottages around Rowley Regis and the scraggy, windy fields on the summit of Turners Hill are walled with the same shapeless, dark brown lumps of the same rock.<The Black Country; Roy Millward & Adrian Robinson, 1971. Macmillan Education Limited>

The use of the Rowley dolerite (known as 'Rowley R ag') as a building stone ceased over two centuries ago when bricks made from the clays within the coal measures, became the universal building material of the Black Country. The rise of the quarry industry on a commercial scale dates from the 1820s when the hard smooth rock was used for the paving stones of new streets in Birmingham and the rapidly growing Black Country towns. As demands have changed, today the quarries serve as a source of road metal, but is is hard to imagine how long quarrying will continue. Quarrying in other areas of Tividale, Darby's Hill, Warren's Hall and Blue Rock has ceased and the quarries used for landfill. Only Turner's Hill quarry remains.

[edit]Housing

Housing estates around Tividale include Tividale Hall, Castle View, Grace Mary and Brades Hall.

Up until the late 1960s Dudley Golf Course was split in two by the Oakham Road. Around 1966 the section of the course on Darby's Hill was sold and part of it was used to build a private housing estate originally named Oakham Green.

Tividale Hall was originally developed as private housing during the mid to late 1930s in the Dudley section of Tividale, but was extended in the 1950s with council housing.

Castle View is an extension of Tividale Hall and was built during the 1970s, mostly as private housing but also with several low-rise blocks of council flats.

Grace Mary was built in the 1930s between Oakham and the recently completed Birmingham New Road, mostly as council housing. Expansions took place in the 1950s to merge it into Tividale Hall.

Brades Hall is situated in the north of Tividale off the A457 road between Tipton and Oldbury. The first development took place with private housing during the 1960s, with further private and council housing being added in the 1970s and another private development taking place in the mid 1980s.

In the early 1990s, the area of Tipton around the Birmingham Canal was developed as a private housing estate called Tividale Quays. The most recent development came in 2005/06, when two new streets of private housing were added.

Despite existing within the original Dudley and Tipton council areas, most of Tividale exists within the Oldbury B69 postal district.

[edit]Religion

St Michael's C of E Church, once the most prominent landmark in the village, was completed in 1878. Contributions to its costs were made by local industrialists and especially by the Earl of Dudley. The large, brick building became known as the "Cathedral of the Black Country" and earned itself a reputation for advanced Anglo-Catholicism early in its history. Several vicars became very well known and loved: one, Wynn Griffiths, is commemorated in a street name in the Tividale Quays development. The growing parish produced two mission churches: one, St Augustine's (a corrugated iron construction now demolished)on Oldbury Road and a second, Holy Cross, on the Grace Mary Estate to the west of the Birmingham New Road. The Parish Church was earmarked for demolition in 1982 after an inspection revealed that the buildings were riddled with damp and woodworm. It was decided to demolish the church and rebuild it, rather than improve the original building. Consequently, the church was demolished in 1984 and a new, smaller church was later opened in 1995, using what had been the substantial parish hall as its core. There is another church, Oakham Evangelical, sitting on the brow of the hill in City Road.

Today, Tividale is also the home of the new Hindu Temple which is an exact replica of Tirupati Balaji Temple in Southern India.

[edit]Education

The area has been served by a secondary school since 1956. It was opened as 'Tividale Secondary Modern School' before being renamed Tividale Comprehensive School and earned the nickname locally as 'The Comp' but is now known as Ormiston Sandwell Community Academy.

Vono beds set up business at Tividale in 1896 and remained present in the area for some 100 years afterwards, until relocating from their Groveland Road factory to a new site in Wednesbury in the late 1990s.[1]

[edit]Public houses

The majority of Tividale's pubs today are situated on Tividale Road and Dudley Road West near Tividale's northern border. The Wonder, The Albion, The Plough and The George are all within walking distance of each other. Apart from these, there is Brades Tavern on Brades Road and the Price Of Wales on Ashtree Road. The Wheatsheaf stands alone at the southern edge of the area on the junction of Turner's Hill, Portway Hill, City Road and Oakham Road.

Since the turn of the millennium a large amount of pubs - especially the housing estate based establishments have gone. The Hangman's Tree (demolished),^[2] Barley Mow (demolished 2010), Red Lion (demolished 2010), The Huntsman (now an Indian restaurant, the 'Red Mango'), The Waggon & Horses (now a branch of the Co-Operative food store^[3]) and the Cottage Spring all no longer exist as pubs if not at all.

The Hangman's Tree Public House was named after an elm tree that existed opposite the public house that was said to have been used for at least one public execution in the 18th or 19th century. The elm tree alas is no more as after contracting dutch elm disease in the early 1970s was then struck by lightening and all trace of the tree has now been removed.

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