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SALOP STREET, City Centre

Shown in early maps as Barn Street. Rev Ames of Bilston describes a great fire on 10^th September 1696, which burnt down most of that part of the Town as “having started in some harvest hay in the barn of Mr Stych, which took fire, it being ill gotton in”. The street is shown named Salop Street in the 1827 map.  

SANDLAND CLOSE, The Lunt

Named after Bill Sandland, a Labour councillor and Mayor of Bilston.

(Tom Larkin)

SCHOOL ROAD, Tettenhall Wood

School Road was built following the enclosure of Tettenhall Wood Common in 1807 although it was possibly an upgrading of an existing track connecting The Wergs to Compton. Presumably it only received its name after Miss Theodosia Hinckes of Tettenhall Wood House, gave a small parcel of land in 1874 for the building of a small school near to the cross roads.

(Keith Cattell)

SHARMAN ROAD, Low Hill

Named after D. F. Sharman, a Wolverhampton councillor of the 1930s, who himself lived in the area at Melverton Avenue.

This is one of a cluster of streets on the estate named after councillors.  In some local authorities it was and continues to be a common practice to name streets and buildings after local councillors but, mostly, Wolverhampton did not go in for this from of self-aggrandisement but Bilston seems to have been more susceptible to it.

SKIDMORE AVENUE, Birches Barn Estate

Frederick Howard Skidmore was the Chairman of the Town Housing Committee during the period of purchasing and planning the council house estate at Birches Barn, Parkfields and Green Lanes, which were among the first in the country. Alderman Skidmore was Mayor in 1913/14. He died in July 1920.  

(Peter Hickman)

SKINNER STREET, City Centre

This street was created in 1861 and was so called because of a skin and hide business.  In 1802 two tanners, a currier and some tenters are recorded in Townwell Fold, which came out on to Victoria Street where Skinner Street now is.  These business relied on water's being available from the town well. 

(Anthony Perry)

SNOW HILL, City Centre

The 1750 map shows the name Windmill Bank. The name Snow Hill is on the 1827 map.  

(Peter Hickman)

SOUTHWEST TOWN BOUNDARY

Goldthorn Hill…Rookery Lane…Stubbs Road….Birches Barn Road…Broad Lane. The alignment of these roads follows very closely the southern and south western boundary of the lands granted to Lady Wulfrun by King Aethelred in AD 985. This boundary still formed the limits of Wolverhampton Borough until its enlargement in 1966.

On the Tithe map the whole road from the Penn Road to Bradmore is named Birches Barn Road. On the 1886 map the road is named Stubbs Lane. At that time the occupant of Birches Barn Farmhouse was George Stubbs. The former farmhouse is now preserved as number 68. Stubbs Lane is still the name on the 1901 map.

The ironmaster Mr J W Sparrow, at some time in the 1850s, built the mansion Beckminster  House. The Tithe map names the field on which Sparrow’s house is built  ‘Beckmaster’ and it is evidently from this, rather than any minster, that the name ‘Beckminster’ derives.

At the Bradmore crossroads the Tithe map describes the field on which the Bradmore Arms now stands as ‘in Dead lads piece’ a reference perhaps of a burial in unconsecrated ground.  

(Peter Hickman)

THE SPINNEY, Finchfield

Originally the name of the large house at the centre of a large estate.  (The Spinney is now a listed building, qv).  The name was probably chosen by the first owner of the house, a Mr. Hall-Jones.  When part of the estate (which seems to have been the garden part) was developed by John McLean Ltd in the 60s the name was applied to the new estate and the road through it.  The roads off it were given typical surburban names, based on natural features - which Johnny McLean is said to have been keen on as a selling point.  Thus Birch Glade was probably named after the silver birches in its area and Walnut Drive, The Pines, Sycamore Road and Spruce Drive may have been named in a similar way.  The Dingle may have been a dingle in the gardens of the Spinney

(Frank Sharman)

STANTON ROAD, Eastfield

Named after the Reverend Thomas Stanton who was the vicar of  St. Matthews Church between 1923 and 1942. The church stood on the corner of Horseley Fields and Lower Walsall Street and was demolished in 1964 after crumbling beyond repair due to years of damage caused by the local industrial environment.  

(Roy Jones)

STAR STREET, Bradmore

Built by Edward Lisle and his Star car and bicycle manufacturing company, presumably for his staff.  It is not clear whe it was built this far out, in a very undeveloped area, then still known as Dead Lad's Grave.  Perhaps he hoped that cars and bicycles would overcome the distance.

(Dick Rhodes)

SUMMER ROW, City Centre

Summer Row was in existence many years before Cleveland Street was created.  It is possible to read too much into such things but the word "summer" did mean a pack horse; and a "summer" is also a horizontal bearing beam or lintel, especially for the support of roof joists or rafters - maybe there is a connection with what was on the site?

(Anthony Perry)