Where is the Black Country then, really?
Posted by tomfromthepost on January 23, 2008
Today I was talking to the Black Country Chamber of Commerce about their plans to get the region officially recognised by the Ordinance Survey maps.
The hardest part of the whole business is deciding what and where the Black Country actually is though. Although it’s obviously got it’s own identity – probably more so than the surrounding areas of other cities of similar size.
I don’t know about Gateshead or Salford being so keen to distance themselves from their larger conurbations to nearly the same extent as the Black Country seems to.
I’m a relative newcomer to the West Midlands, so all these references to yam yams, Slade, bostin, faggots and peas, brummagem and the like passes over my head a bit. So someone take a guess, help me out: where does Birmingham end and the Black Country start? And why is it so important to everyone?
Tom Scotney 
Pete Ashton said
The black country starts when things appear to be a little odd but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Like being in a foreign country where nearly everything is the same but not quite and they speak English but not quite. It’s not a bad place, just different.
I’d say that map is about right. The M5 is rough dividing line with a slight incursion in the north for Walsall. They can have it, to be frank, as long as they concede Bearwood to us.
Oh, why is it important? I think because Birmingham and the Black Country really are very different – surprisingly so considering the proximity and the effect of mass media, etc. And yet the rest of the country thinks they’re the same thing, so there’s an extra incentive to make that clear.
tomfromthepost said
“Like being in a foreign country where nearly everything is the same but not quite and they speak English but not quite.”
I see you’ve spent time in the Black Country.
Think this all just goes to show how dangerous drawing a line in the sand would be, you’re always going to piss someone off who’s left on the wrong side of the line. Actually something else the Chamber mentioned was trying to get a Black Country postcode introduced (is BC taken? YM?) which I bet would ruffle a few feathers
Russ L said
I’m with the video they show at The Black Country Museum: “The Black Country begins and ends where a Black Country Mon says it does.”
Now, that could clearly be open for abuse, but I’m one of the most megalomaniacal amongst us and I would be prepared to set sensible boundaries.
I would hardly be alone in saying that the above map is incorrect in terms of appearing to suggest that Walsall town centre and (even though I’m no football follower) The Hawthorns are outside. I know some disagree, but I really and distinctly believe that Wolverhampton is within the Black Country too (it’s clearly not bloody Shropshireland, is it?).
Pete: It’s yow who dow spake proppa, it ay we.
Pete Ashton said
I didn’t notice Wolvs being outside. Odd that as (mentally) I’d consider Wolverhampton to be the “capital” of the Black Country .
Jon Bounds said
Weirdly, I think the Hawthorns is just on the Brum side of the line – everything the other side of the M5 island is yours tho. (Albion are definitely a Black Country team tho).
Walsall and Wolverhampton are the twin pillars of the BC, I guess that leaving them out is a bit of a ‘sandwell’ thing.
Russ L said
It’s mostly Walsall-ites I’ve heard the ‘Wolverhampton isn’t BC’ thing from, myself.
Geo-attention data - places you care about | jon bounds said
[…] administrative boundaries bear very little relation to the ones that exist in our head. Witness the endless debates about what’s ‘The Black Country’ or what is or isn’t in Birmingham. Different bodies also have wildy different views on what […]
Stuart Lamb said
Try this one….They put money where their mouths are!!