The Black Country town of Darlaston

Until the sweeping changes to the county boundaries made by  the reorganisation of the country's system of local government in 1974, there were two towns by the name of Darlaston in Staffordshire. One near Stoke in the north of the county, and one close to Wolverhampton, in the south. The one in the north is referred to as being in the 'hundred of Pyrehill', whilst ours, in the south, is described as being in the 'hundred of Offlow South'.

1974 saw the creation of the West Midlands County Council, covering Coventry, Birmingham, and the industrial heartlands of the Midlands known traditionally as the Black Country, including the southern Darlaston. The logic behind the transfer of these towns from Staffordshire was that, as industrial towns, they had more in common with Birmingham than the largely agricultural, rural suburbs of Staffordshire. The transfer was, and remains, highly controversial, and indeed, unpopular and for the people of Darlaston, has added somewhat to an already confusing situation. They live in a town which has been absorbed by it's bigger neighbour, Walsall; their telephone numbers are of a Birmingham format (they begin with 0121 not Walsall's 01902); their postcodes suggest they are a suburb of Wolverhampton, not Walsall (WV instead of WS); their historical records are held in the Staffordshire County Records Office, and their parish church, St. Lawrence's, belongs to the Lichfield Diocese in southern Staffordshire. It's no wonder Darlastonians don't know whether they're coming or going.

To be continued

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