Coseley

Coseley (ˈkoʊzli ) is a village in the Dudley Metropolitan Borough, in the West Midlands County, England. It is situated north of Dudley itself, on the border with Wolverhampton. Though it is a part of the Dudley North constituency. It also falls within the Wolverhampton South-East parliamentary constituency. Coseley was originally a village in the ancient manor of Sedgley. In 1867, it joined with Brierley and Ettingshall to break away from the parish of Sedgley and formed Lower Sedgley Local Board District. In 1875, the name was changed to Coseley Local Board District by order of the Council and, in 1895, became Coseley Urban District. At this stage, most of the Coseley area was occupied by industrial and agricultural land; it was known during this time for its Carboniferous fossils. Coseley Urban District Council built several thousand council houses and flats over a 40-year period from the mid-1920s which changed the face of the area. Most of these were built around Woodcross, Lanesfield, Wallbrook, and Brierley. Coseley gained a cinema, on the corner of Mason Street and Birmingham New Road, during the 1930s, part of the Clifton chain, but this closed in January 1963 as a result of the postwar decline in cinema audiences brought on by the rising popularity of home television. The building was later demolished and a veterinary surgery now occupies the site. Since 1927, Coseley has also had a direct road link with Birmingham and Wolverhampton. The Birmingham New Road, a dual carriageway, was laid out at this time, though it has become plagued with traffic congestion in recent years. Bean Cars opened a factory at Coseley in 1919, with another being in operation in central Dudley. The new factory was situated in the south-east of the district near the border with Tipton, and a subsequent second phase of the factory (at the other side of a now-defunct railway line) was actually situated in Tipton, as were its offices in Sedgley Road West, which had been taken over by Tipton Urban District Council by the end of the 1930s.