Drake's Road Book of the Grand Junction Railway from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester. active 1825 James Drake

It stands conspicuously on the summit and acclivities of a limestone rock, which is crowned by the church, the lofty spire of which forms a fine object. Market on Tuesday; fairs September 24, Whit Monday, and Tuesday before Michaelmas day. Proceeding onwards we pass under

Bescot Bridge Station.

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      Distance to Birmingham, 9½—Liverpool and Manchester, 88 miles.

      DISTANCES BY ROADS FROM THIS STATION TO THE FOLLOWING PLACES:—

Places W. of Station.		Places E. of Station.
Wednesbury	1 mile	Walsall	1½ mile
Tipton	4 miles	Rushall	2½ miles
Dudley	5½—	Over Stonnal	6½—
Netherton	6¾—	Lower Stonnal	7½—
Brierley Hill	8¼—	Shenstone	9—
King Swinford	8½—	Lichfield	11—
Wordesley	9¼—
The Lye	9¼—
Stourbridge	9¾—
Old Swinford	10½—

      The main road from Wednesbury to Walsall crosses this bridge; pass Bescot Hall, (Mr. Marshall’s,) on the E., and reach

James’s Bridge Station.

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      Distance to Birmingham, 10¼—Liverpool and Manchester, 87¼ miles.

      DISTANCES BY ROADS FROM THIS STATION TO THE FOLLOWING PLACES:—

Places W. of Station.		Places E. of Station.
Darlaston	¾ mile	Walsall	1¾ mile
Coseley	3 miles

      The high road from Walsall crosses here to Darlaston, (seen in the distance on the W.,) another town in the iron and coal district, and, according to tradition, the seat of Wulphere, king of Mercia, who put his two sons to death for embracing Christianity. On the hill at Berry Bank, are the remains of a large castle and entrenchments, and near by, a Barrow, which it were heresy to doubt were the residence and grave of this redoubtable personage. The chief manufactures of this, as of the neighbouring towns, consist of various iron and steel goods. The whole district is abundantly traversed by canals, tram-roads, &c., for the convenient conveyance of merchandise, and presents to the passing traveller less subject for praise in point of beauty, than for admiration and surprise, at the closely-placed engines, mills, coal-pits, iron-mines, and factories, which greet him on all sides, with hissing, curling volumes of white steam, or thick massy clouds of rolling smoke. Should the traveller journey through this strange neighbourhood by night, the novel and wild, not to say, grand, effect of the fires, must strike him forcibly. Huge furnaces glowing on the earth, from a dark wayside forge; tall chimneys, themselves not seen in the gloom, vomiting forth flames and fiery-coloured smoke, or a long range of glowing hillocks, where flickering blazes play from the charcoal burning within: add to these, the dusky figures of the men and boys employed in the works, and a stranger will have a scene before him, in which the “fearsome” is oddly enough blended with the grotesque.