Dudley has a history dating back to medieval times; a castle has stood in Dudley since the 8th century, the present castle dates from the 13th century, and provided the centre around which the town grew. 

The town industrialised rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and its population grew dramatically. Due to its heavy and highly polluting industries it became a central part of the Black Country. The main industries in Dudley included coal and limestone mining. Other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking. Most of these industries have declined in recent decades.

Dudley was mostly made up of farms and factories surrounded by the occasional cottage until the 19th century, when many rows of terraced houses with terrible sanitation were built. These in turn were cleared between the 1920s and 1960s to make way for council owned houses and flats. The Dudley area also consists of many privately owned houses including some late 19th/early 20th century homes which are still standing but have been modernised to keep up with modern sanitation standards.

This page was last updated: 12 September 2005

Town history extracts are taken from Wikipedia and are licensed under GFDL