Chapel Street Estate

Chapel Street Estate is a residential area of

Brierley Hill Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 2.5 miles south of Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a popu ...

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Although the Chapel Street Estate was only created in the 1960s, the actual site of the estate had been a dense residential area for at least 100 years previously. Hundreds of

terraced house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

s had been built on the site of Chapel Street during the 19th century, housing the many industrial workers who were being employed at new factories like the

Round Oak Steel Works The Round Oak Steelworks was a steel production plant in Brierley Hill, West Midlands (formerly Staffordshire), England. It was founded in 1857 by Lord Ward, who later became, in 1860, The 1st Earl of Dudley, as an outlet for pig iron made in t ...

. But by the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, many of these houses were unfit for human habition and plans were soon being made for their demolition. By the end of the 1960s, all of the old houses in the area had been demolished and replaced by a new housing estate that consisted entirely of council flats. There were eight tower blocks and approximately 15 smaller blocks that were between three and six storeys high. The road layout of the estate was also much better than before, and it was soon regarded as one of the best council estates in the

Metropolitan Borough of Dudley The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourb ...

(which had absorbed Brierley Hill in 1966). . {{coord, 52.478, -2.123, type:city_region:GB-DUD, display=title Areas of Dudley Brierley Hill Housing estates in England