West Midlands Leasing

Did You Know?

The West Midlands is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in western-central England with a 2014 estimated population of 2,808,356, making it the second most populous county in England after Greater London.

West Midlands has a mix of town and country including Birmingham’s city attractions, charming small towns and villages full of character and open spaces allowing visitors to get away from it all and enjoy the best of the scenic English countryside. Local attractions & places of interest include Aston Hall, Bullring, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Sea Life Centre Birmingham, Dudley Castle and Zoo.

Early settlement was sparse in the remote and heavily wooded countryside until Saxon colonists penetrated the river valleys. Birmingham originated as a small Saxon settlement near a crossing of the River Rea, though it long remained but a minor town. Dudley and its castle dominated the remote and sparsely populated area now known (from its grimy landscape) as the Black Country. Coventry was in fact the region’s only significant town by the late 14th century, when, as the fourth largest town in England 

Coal mining used to be the main industry of the Black Country. Nationally famous companies in the West Midlands are Cadbury's in Bournville, Birmingham; the brewing companies such as Coors Brewers in Burton on Trent, as well as Marmite; JCB is based in Staffordshire.

Maxaret, the world's first ABS braking system, was invented in Coventry by Dunlop in the early 1950s for aircraft; John Boyd Dunlop was a Scottish vet who had first produced the first pneumatic tyres in 1889.

The West Midlands region of the BBC is based at the Mailbox in Birmingham. From there, the regional programme Midlands Today is produced. ITV Central broadcasts from Birmingham, with its Central Tonight regional programme.

The phrase ‘sent to Coventry’ apparently originated during the English Civil War? It seems that in 1647 Royalist prisoners of war captured elsewhere in the Midlands were held in Coventry.

The RAF Fauld explosion on 27 November 1944 in east Staffordshire produced a 100-foot deep crater, and is the UK's largest explosion, being caused by around 4,000 tonnes of high explosive, and may be the world's largest non-nuclear explosion.

The first ever English Bicycle was made in Coventry, West Midlands ? Built in 1870 it was called the Ariel: with a large front- and small rear-wheel (fitted with solid rubber tyres) it is obviously the forerunner of the penny farthing, though far from as extreme in dimensions.