other: Dudley (disambiguation) for: Metropolitan Borough of Dudley

Dudley (pronunciation) is a large town in the West Midlands, England, with a population of 194,919. Since 1974 it has been the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Dudley; the original County Borough had undergone a lesser expansion in 1966. It is the 19th largest settlement in England, measured by Urban Sub-Area, the second largest town in the United Kingdom, behind Reading and the largest settlement in the UK without its own university.

Dudley, part of the West Midlands conurbation, is located south of Wolverhampton and is the largest town in the Black Country. The town centre, for many years, formed part of an exclave of Worcestershire entirely surrounded by Staffordshire - which has determined the fact that, in ecclesiastical terms, it has remained part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester.

History

Dudley has a history dating back to medieval times. Dudley Castle has stood in the town since the 11th century, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. The present castle dates from the 13th century, and provided the centre around which the town grew. The oldest condoms found (rather than just pictures or descriptions) were discovered in Dudley Castle and date from 1640. Dating from the 12th century are the ruins of St James Priory, set within the Priory Park.

Of historical significance, the first Newcomen steam engine was installed at the Conygree coalworks a mile east of Dudley Castle in 1712.

Dudley was mostly made up of farms and factories surrounded by the occasional cottage until the 19th century, when many rows of terraced houses with terrible sanitation were built. These in turn were cleared between the 1920s and 1960s to make way for council owned houses and flats. The Dudley area also consists of many privately owned houses including some late 19th/early 20th century homes which are still standing but have been modernised to keep up with modern sanitation standards.

The first major council housing development was the Priory Estate, near the border of Sedgley, where more than 2,000 houses were built between 1929 and 1939. The Wrens Nest Estate followed soon afterwards. It stands in the shadow of Wrens Nest Hill, where many Silurian fossils can be found including crinoids, corals and trilobites.

The village of Lower Gornal, just outside Dudley, was the epicentre for the Dudley earthquake of 2002, the largest earthquake to hit the United Kingdom in nearly 10 years.

Civic history

Dudley became a municipal borough in 1865. In 1889, it became a County Borough. The County Borough of Dudley included the town of Dudley and the villages of Woodside and Netherton. In the 1961 census, the County Borough had a population of 62,965.