Oxley is a suburb of

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...

, West Midlands, and a

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

City Council. Its area code is WV10. It is situated in the north of the city, bordering

South Staffordshire South Staffordshire is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. The district lies to the north and west of the West Midlands county, bordering Shropshire to the west and Worcestershire to the south. It contains notable settle ...

and the

Bushbury North Bushbury North is a ward of Wolverhampton City Council, West Midlands, England. It is situated to the north of the city centre, on the city's border with South Staffordshire. As well as South Staffordshire, Bushbury North borders the Falling ...

, Bushbury South and Low Hill, St Peter's and Tettenhall Regis wards. It forms part of the

Wolverhampton North East Wolverhampton North East is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. It is currently represented by ...

constituency.

Name and origins

The place name Oxley has its origins in the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

language. ' Ox' from old English 'Oxa' (for the animal), and 'Ley' from the old English 'lēah' (recorded in the Domesday Book by the Normans as 'Oxelie'), meaning woodland clearing or meadow. The majority of Wolverhampton's place names are old English (

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

) in origin, and at that time, much of the land was covered in woodland. Cannock forest stretched down through Wolverhampton and would have encompassed the Oxley area – so the name means a clearing in the woodland with the presence of oxen. Up until the 20th century, Oxley was very much a rural area, sitting on the route of the Wolverhampton to Stafford road.

Transport

The boroughs western border is also the location of

Autherley Junction Autherley Junction () is the name of the canal junction where the Shropshire Union Canal terminates and meets the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near to Oxley, north Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. History The Staffordshire ...

, where the

Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales. The canal lies in ...

meets the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, and of Aldersley Junction, where the

BCN Main Line The BCN Main Line, or Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line is the evolving route of the Birmingham Canal between Birmingham and Wolverhampton in England. The name ''Main Line'' was used to distinguish the main Birmingham to Wolverhampton rou ...

meets the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. The mainline of the former

Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway The Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway was authorised in 1846. It agreed to joint construction with others of the costly Wolverhampton to Birmingham section, the so-called Stour Valley Line. This work was dominated by the hostile London and North ...

(S&BR) transits the area. In 1907, the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

developed a

railway depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

at Oxley, to replace the S&BR shed that had existed at

Wolverhampton railway works Wolverhampton railway works was in the city of Wolverhampton in the county of Staffordshire, England. It was almost due north of the city centre, and is commemorated with a small display of level crossing gates and a plaque. Known as the Staf ...

. A standard two-turntable shed, it housed nearly 100 locomotives, mainly freight types for servicing the co-located major freight yard. After allocation to

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four (British ra ...

ways London Midland Region in January 1963, it choose to close the dilapidated

Wolverhampton (Stafford Road) TMD Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians". ...

, and hence moved all locomotives to Oxley from September 1963. The shed closed to steam locomotives from March 1967, redeveloped as a diesel maintenance facility. In 1972 the stretch of railway between Wolverhampton North Junction and Oxley was electrified on the 25 kV overhead line AC system (using catenary designed for low-speed movements only), the first stretch of the former Great Western network to be thus treated. This enabled electric locomotives to work empty coaching stock on

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

services from

London Euston Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city rail ...

that terminated at

. Today

Oxley TRSMD Oxley Traction and Rolling Stock Maintenance Depot is a railway depot located in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, operated by Alstom to maintain Avanti West Coast's British Rail Class 390 ''Pendolino'' stock for the West Coast Main Line. History ...

is operated by

Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational corporation, multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the A ...

to maintain Class 390 ''Pendolinos'' for

Avanti West Coast Avanti West Coast is a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by FirstGroup (70%) and Trenitalia (30%) that operates the West Coast Partnership franchise. During November 2016, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced the Inter ...

. From 2021 Oxley TRSMD will be the home depot for Avanti West Coast Class 805 and 807s. Oxley is well served by buses with

National Express West Midlands National Express West Midlands (NXWM) is a bus operator in the West Midlands that operates services in Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton, and Solihull, as well as limited routes outside of the general area of Birmingham, s ...

services 3 and 4 providing a combined 7 minute service between the City Centre and Three Tuns Island. Additional services are operated by Select Bus Service on service 877/878 which runs to

Brewood Brewood is an ancient market town in the civil parish of Brewood and Coven, in the South Staffordshire district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. Located around , Brewood lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton ci ...

and occasionally to

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in th ...

Modern times

The focal point of Oxley is the Three Tuns Parade, a shopping area on the

A449 The A449 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs north from junction 24 of the M4 motorway at Newport in South Wales to Stafford in Staffordshire. The southern section of the road, between Ross on Wye and Newport forms part of the tru ...

Stafford Road, adjacent to the boundary with Bushbury North. Several shops, takeaways and banks are located here, including the ''Ming Moon'' Chinese buffet restaurant (formerly the Three Tuns Pub), a branch of the

Nationwide Building Society Nationwide Building Society is a British mutual financial institution, the seventh largest cooperative financial institution and the largest building society in the world with over 16 million members. Its headquarters are in Swindon, Englan ...

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the " Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an exte ...

, and several others. Principal local landmarks are the two towering railway viaducts crossing the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line Canal. A recent departure from the Oxley skyline was the blue and yellow chimney of the Goodyear tyre factory. After car tyre production ceased in 2006 the Goodyear plant went into an almost complete shutdown and, as of 2008, has now been partly reduced to rubble as part of a regeneration and housing project with the famous 81-year-old chimney stack demolished on Sunday 29 June 2008. A new housing estate is being constructed here as of summer 2011https://www.expressandstar.com/money/property/2011/03/02/300-goodyear-homes-on-the-way/ Express & Star - 300 Goodyear homes on the way (02/03/2011) which includes an Aldi and a Hungry Horse pub named "The Gatehouse" as it sits on the site of the old Goodyear gatehouse. The Church of the Epiphany is the Anglican parish Church on Lymer Road, the building itself dates to the early 1960s. Installed within the Church is a fine example of a Compton

Theatre organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements ...

originally installed at the Windsor

Theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

in Bearwood, Birmingham. The local Polish community has its centre and Catholic Church on Stafford Road, Oxley. The suburb of

Pendeford Pendeford is a suburb of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. Historically part of Staffordshire, it is situated north-north-west of the city centre, within the Oxley ward of Wolverhampton City Council. At the 2011 Census, the population o ...

falls within Oxley ward. Wolverhampton Science Park is situated near Oxley's south border, on the site of the old Gas Works at Gorsebrook. Ormiston NEW Academy lies in the ward.

References

Sources

*''Canal Companion - Birmingham Canal Navigations'', J. M. Pearson & Associates, 1989, * https://web.archive.org/web/20120305171636/http://www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D608419B-8BF8-493F-89B7-204FF5C8306C/0/Oxley.pdf 2001 Census {{Wards of Wolverhampton Areas of Wolverhampton Wards of Wolverhampton City Council