Another bostin’ day in the Black Country

Hitting the streets in the 1960s

THIS week’s front page photograph was taken on Friday, September 25, 1964, and it shows a busy day in Dudley marketplace.

The photographer was standing near the 1867 fountain by James Forsyth and looking down towards St Edmund’s, or Bottom Church as it’s known in the town. There was a bobby on point duty to help folk dodge the traffic on the zebra crossing and the market appeared to be doing a roaring trade.

Vintage

We have some more pictures of a similar vintage; first, another view of Dudley, this time the newlyopened Birdcage Walk, on Friday, August 21, 1964.

The photographer was in Wednesbury on Wednesday, July 31, snapping a moped buzzing through the marketplace there, with cars parked around the clock tower that commemorates the coronation of George V in 1911.

We don’t have an exact date for our last photograph, but it was taken on a rainy day in March 1964 in Cape Hill, Smethwick.

The marketplace, Wednesbury, July 31, 1963

Birdcage Walk, Dudley, on August 21, 1964

Cape Hill, Smethwick, in March 1964