Lost industry.
Courtaulds
Living in castlecroft, you could look across the fields and see chimneys on the horizon. These chimneys have now gone, they were part of the courtaulds factory. A textile manufacturers, they were well known in the area. After the site was demolished it was turned into a housing estate however problems with contaminated land came to light which has blighted the area for years.
Goodyears
once second only to the railways, Goodyears was the major employer of the town. The company had a plant othe A449 at Oxley on the outskirts of the town. Amongst the facilities on site were a club and Sports field. Been an American owned company a great deal of effort was put into the community in the area. Many of the "native American managers lived in the Wergs area of the town. Sadly the site has now been largely demolished and replaced with a housing estate.
From the 800's AD, the town was known as a wool town. As difficult as it may be to believe now, the settlement of Wulfruns Hane tone was a village with wool as its main trade. This is reflected in some of the towns street names such as Mitre fold and other names including the word fold which meant sheep pen. With the coming of the industrial revolution the town, as it now was changed. No longer an isolated Staffordshire village but first with the canals and later the railways it was possible to make things using materials brought in from ports and other parts of the country to make just about anything of the time and then using the same canals or railways ship it off to the four corners of the Empire. It became home to all sorts of artisans from lock makers to cycle, motorcycle and car makers. We made everything a town could want from pots and pans to parts for railway engines. Sadly most of these well known industries have now gone. Names such as Guy Motors, Sunbeam, Ever ready, Villiers, ICI, Meadows have gone forever in it seems the blink of an eye. As a young man a lot of my friends had motor bikes with names such as BSA, MATCHLESS, AJS, TRIUMPH and NORTON. Whilst not made in Wolverhampton, these names reflect what happened to the towns industries. I saw some of the industry first and when i started work, i must admit to been terrified the first time i went into the Ever Ready, there were lines upon lines of ladies, young and old nudging each other and pointing at the new face repairing the phone. Stories of that place were legendary, it was said that many a young lad ended up in the Royal hospital after tangling with these girls, i never found out if that was true but i was not going to hang around to find out. At one time most of the towns fleet of none trolley busses were made locally by Guy motors, also in Park lane, for some reason the town transport department (WCT) decided not to support Guy when new busses were needed and instead confined the old busses to the school run. It seems WCT thought these busses good enough to let schoolkids push them up Compton holloway but not good enough for anywhere else.
03 don't let the sun catch you crying.mp3
