The Darlaston Brook is a tributary of the River Tame in Bilston, Darlaston, and Moxley, West Midlands, England.
Etymology Darlaston Brook takes its name from Darlaston, through which it flows before joining the River Tame.
History The Darlaston Brook forms the boundary between Willenhall and Darlaston.Environment Agency (2021). Tame Upper Operational Catchment Management Plan. HM Government. Retrieved from Environment Agency Catchment Data Explorer. As early as the 17th century, early coal surface mining and iron working began along the banks, using Darlaston Brook for basic industrial processing and mill operations.Hackwood, F. W. (1908). The Annals of Willenhall. Wolverhampton: Whitehead Brothers. By 1830, the Anson Branch encroached upon Darlaston Brook causing the course of Darlaston Brook to be altered.Hadfield, Charles (1985). The Canals of the West Midlands. David and Charles. .
Much of it was culverted, including the confluence with Bilston Brook,Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council Infrastructure & Hydro-Culverting Planning Records (1995). during efforts to clear pollution during the 20th century (including in 1974), and also when the Black Country Route road system was constructed during the 1990s.Pratt, H. M. (1998). Industrial Modernisation and River Culverting in the Black Country: The Construction of the A454 Black Country Route. Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council Planning Directorate.
Course
The source is culverted and it is on the border between Moxley and Darlaston ().Ordnance Survey (1886). Staffordshire Sheet LXVIII.NE (includes Darlaston, Bilston, and Willenhall) (Map) (1st ed.). 1:10,560. Ordnance Survey Six-Inch England and Wales. Southampton.Greenslade, M. W. (Ed.) (1984). A History of the County of Stafford: Volume XVII – Offlow Hundred (Part). Victoria County History. London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research. pp. 42–58. . It is then first visible above ground at The Lunt, adjacent to the Walsall Canal ().
It then branches and meets the Bilston Brook at the culverted confluence point along Birmingham Street, Darlaston (). The confluence with the River Tame is located under a road bridge near MGR FC's The Paddock ground (), and the River Tame then continues along Bentley Mill Way, Darlaston (), where it is visible from both sides of the road.Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council (2011). Darlaston Surface Water Management Plan and Urban Flood Risk Assessment. Local Development Framework Report. Walsall Council.Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council Planning Archives & Historical Ordnance Survey 1st Edition (1886).
References