Travel Priory Estate Map

Travel to Priory Estate Map

Priory Estate tourist guide map of landmarks & destinations by Walkfo

Priory Estate history

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The Priory Estate is so named because it is located near the Priory ruins and Priory Park. It stands on the land which once straddled the border of Dudley County Borough and Sedgley Urban District, which were in the counties of Worcestershire and Staffordshire respectively. The borders were moved back several hundred yards in 1926 when Dudley Council purchased the land with a view to building council houses to rehouse more than 2,000 families from town centre slums. Hundreds of council houses had already been built across the Dudley Borough in the last decade, but the Priory Estate was to be the largest council housing development yet in the area as the town’s slum problem was still far from being solved. The boundary changes also meant that Dudley Castle was finally transferred to the borough of Dudley after centuries in Sedgley. The foundation stone of the very first house, 9 Oak Road, was laid on 16 July 1929. The first houses were occupied in 1930 and by the end of the decade more than 2,000 houses had been built on the Priory and Wren’s Nest estates. There were also private houses for owner-occupiers built mostly on the south side of the estate near Priory Park, around the southern section of Priory Road, Hazel Road, Woodland Avenue, Chesnut Avenue, Somery Road, Forest Road, Paganel Drive and Gervase Drive. The Broadway, a new link road from Dudley town centre to Sedgley, was also laid out to include more than 200 private houses. Three public houses served the estate: the Wren’s Nest in Priory Road (built in the mid-1930s), the King Arthur on the corner of Birmingham New Road and Priory Road (built in 1939) and the Caves in Wrens Hill Road (built in the 1950s). However, the Wren’s Nest (which was renamed the Duncan Edwards in 2001) was closed in late 2005 and was demolished a year later following a serious arson attack. The King Arthur closed in 2011 and after demolition following an arson attack, the building stood empty until Aldi opened on the site in 2016. The Caves is now the only remaining pub in the area. Shops were built on the estate, mostly in Priory Road, with smaller shops being erected in Lilac Road and Thornhill Road. However, the Lilac Road shops were converted into houses in the late 2000s, and the Thornhill Road shop was demolished in the 2009 as part of the North Priory redevelopment. Priory Park was laid out in 1932, with iron railing around the perimeter.(These were removed during the war for the metal to be used in the war effort.) The same year that Priory Road was fully opened to give Dudley a direct road link with the Birmingham New Road in Coseley – incorporating the Priory Ruins as well as Priory Hall (former home of Sir Gilbert Claughton). Priory Hall is currently in use as Dudley Registry Office, and has been based there since the office’s relocation from a building in Ednam Road in about 1990. The Park itself was restored between 2012 and 2013 through support from Dudley Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund. Most of the people living in the council houses on the Priory Estate were rehoused from town centre slum clearances. They were generally pleased with living in new houses which had gardens, electricity, hot and cold running tap water, bathrooms, toilets, a solid fuel boiler, with kitchens and an adjacent pantry. But the Priory Estate quickly ran into problems, with vandalism, litter, graffiti, vehicle crime, burglary and drug dealing becoming widespread, particularly on the north side of the estate, by the 1980s. Unemployment in the area was also relatively high. However, the Priory Estate was not as severely affected by these issues as the neighbouring Wren’s Nest, or indeed several other parts of the Dudley borough and neighbouring Sandwell. The homes of elderly people were targeted most frequently by vandals and other criminals; in 1991, a plank of wood was hurled through the window of a room in which a 90-year-old woman was sleeping. The most famous former resident of the Priory Estate is footballer Duncan Edwards, who was born two miles away at Holly Hall but moved to 31 Elm Road as a small child, attending Priory Primary School (1941 to 1948) and then Wolverhampton Street School. Edwards went on to play 18 times for England as well as winning two Football League championships with Manchester United, before he died in 1958 at the age of 21 from injuries sustained in the Munich air disaster. After his death, a stained glass window was dedicated to Edwards at St Francis’ Parish Church at the junction of Laurel Road and Poplar Crescent. The church was founded in 1931 and was originally based at Priory Hall before the church building on the newly developed housing estate was opened on 10 May 1932. The estate was served by a secondary school from 1965, when Mons Hill School opened on Wrens Hill Road (running between the Priory and the neighbouring Wren’s Nest Estate) to replace Wolverhampton Street School. This school closed in 1990 due to falling pupil numbers, with the remaining pupils split between Castle High and Coseley School. The Mons Hill buildings then became part of Dudley College, which vacated most of the site in 2012. The redundant buildings were demolished in 2015. Dudley College vacated the remaining part of the site in 2018 and this building was reutilised as The Wenlock School.

  

Priory Estate map & travel guide with history & landmarks to explore

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Tourist Guide to Priory Estate Map

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Walkfo Priory Estate travel map key: visit National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top travel destinations in Priory Estate