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Kingswinford Leasing

Did You Know?

Kingswinford is a town of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the English West Midlands, situated 5 miles west-southwest of central Dudley. In 2011 the area had a population of 25,191.

Kingswinford has links to the gunpowder plot when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Several of his co conspirators were captured and killed at Holbeche House where they had taken refuge in 1605 after fleeing when the plot was uncovered.

Events at the beginning of the seventeenth century made Kingswinford famous in English history with the involvement of John Littleton of Holbeche in the Gunpowder Plot During this century entries in the Kingswinford registers of scythesmiths, colliers and nailers show some evidence of the changes.

Kingswinford is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and St. Mary's is the oldest church in the area. It has stood here for over 800 years as Kingswinford has grown from a hamlet of 100 people to a suburb of 25,000. It is a beautiful, ancient building but it is much more than that.

Nothing more is known of Kingswinford till King John visited the Staffordshire manor of Kinfare in 1206. Soon after King John gave Kingswinford to Baron Dudley, Ralph de Somery. At this time and for many years afterwards only a small portion of the land in the parish was cultivated the greater part was woodland.

The districts of Kingswinford and Wall Heath, today refer to an area approximately one mile radius from "The Cross" being the cross roads from Dudley to Kidderminster (A4101) and Stourbridge to Wolverhampton (A491).

The only railway passing through this area was opened in 1829. Lord Dudley built the line starting at Ashwood basin on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal to land near Kingswinford Church. It was a standard gauge mineral line carrying coal from collieries on Pensnett Chase.

As you drive (or walk) along these roads can you picture our historic past - if you get time have a look at the "Kingswinford clock", on display in the lighting shop on the corner of Market Street and Park Street, that was presented to the village over 100 years ago.

It is said that Kingswinford can trace its history back to Roman times, certainly the earthwork at Ashwood, a mile west of Wall Heath, has been recognised as a Roman Camp since at least 1686.

The ancient parish of Kingswinford, whose boundaries were probably little altered for a thousand years until the end of the eighteenth century at the time of the "Industrial Revolution", covers a wide area.

The 500-year-old Coventry Tapestry, on the north wall of the city’s medieval guildhall of St Mary, is the oldest in the country still hanging on the wall for which it was made. It features King Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou, surrounded by many of the people they knew in life.