Tipton Green

Tipton Green is the central area of Tipton, a town in the West Midlands of England. It was heavily developed for heavy industry and housing during the 19th century, as Tipton was one of the most significant towns during the Industrial Revolution. Tipton Green is one of three electoral wards covering Tipton for Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. The population of this Sandwell ward taken at the 2011 census was 12,834. It is represented by three Labour councillors.

In June 1644, during the Civil War, Parliamentary forces attacked nearby Dudley Castle (a Royalist garrison), aided by Edward Dudley of Tipton Green Hall, which resulted in the Battle of Tipton Green. At this time, Tipton Green was still a very rural area.

With the development of factories around Tipton Green in the 19th century, came hundreds of houses to provide homes for the workers. By 1843, Tipton Green had a population of approximately 8,000 people. However, virtually all of these houses had been demolished by the early 1970s to be replaced by a modern mix of private and council housing.

St Matthew's Church, the parish church of Tipton Green, was built in 1876. The church is still in use, although the original vicarage was replaced by a new building in its grounds in 1989 and the original vicarage is now a nursing home.

Tipton Baths opened at the junction of Queens Road and Manor Road in 1933, as Tipton's first public swimming baths. These facilities were closed in the summer of 2002 due to funding difficulties with Sandwell Council, only to be re-opened within two years following extensive local campaigning. The original swimming baths stayed open for nearly a decade afterwards, until being relocated to a new leisure centre in Alexandra Road, with the original building being demolished in the autumn of 2014.

Owen Street has been the main shopping area for Tipton Green since the 19th century, and includes the Fountain Inn, a 19th-century public house which in its early years was the headquarters of "Tipton Slasher" William Perry. By the early 1960s, however, Owen Street was falling into disrepair and Tipton Borough Council decided that redevelopment was necessary. Plans for a total redevelopment of Owen Street as well as the nearby Victorian residential area of New Cross Street were unveiled, which would have included a pedestrianized shopping area with multi-storey flats above some of the new shops. However, these plans were shelved when the town's council was abolished in 1966, and the area remained largely unchanged for more than a decade longer.

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