Discover 20 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Dudley (United Kingdom). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Black Country Living Museum, Dudley Castle, and Dudley Council House. Also, be sure to include Himley Hall in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Dudley (England).
Table of Contents
Black Country Living Museum
Museum in Dudley, England. The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It is located in the centre of the Black Country, 10 miles west of Birmingham. The museum occupies 105,000 square metres of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, disused lime kilns, canal arm and former coal pits.
The museum opened to the public in 1978, and has since added over 50 shops, houses and other industrial buildings from around the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton (collectively known as the Black Country); mainly in a specially built village. Most buildings were relocated from their original sites to form a base from where demonstrators portray life spanning 300 years of history, with a focus on 1850-1950.
The museum continues to evolve, as further buildings and other exhibits are added.[1]
Address: Tipton Rd, DY1 4SQ Dudley (Dudley)
Dudley Castle
Castle in Dudley, England. Dudley Castle is a ruined fortification in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Originally a wooden motte and bailey castle built soon after the Norman Conquest, it was rebuilt as a stone fortification during the twelfth century but subsequently demolished on the orders of King Henry II. Rebuilding of the castle took place from the second half of the thirteenth century and culminated in the construction of a range of buildings within the fortifications by John Dudley. The fortifications were slighted by order of Parliament during the English Civil War and the residential buildings destroyed by fire in 1750. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the site was used for fêtes and pageants. Today Dudley Zoo is located on its grounds.
Its location, Castle Hill, is an outcrop of Wenlock Group limestone that was extensively quarried during the Industrial Revolution and which now, along with Wren's Nest Hill, is a scheduled monument of the best surviving remains of the limestone industry in Dudley. It is also a Grade I listed building. Localised structural problems lead to it being placed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register in 2020.
The Dudley Tunnel runs beneath Castle Hill, but not the castle itself.[2]
Address: 10 Castle Hill, DY1 4QQ Dudley (Dudley)
Dudley Council House
Dudley Council House is a municipal building in Priory Road, Dudley, West Midlands, England. The Council House, which is the meeting place of Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council is a Grade II listed building.[3]
Himley Hall
Building in Himley, England. Himley Hall is an early 17th-century country house situated in Staffordshire, England. It is situated in the south of the county in the small village of Himley, near to the town of Dudley and the city of Wolverhampton. Himley Hall is a Grade II* listed building. Its park and garden, which were extended in the 1770s by Lancelot "Capability" Brown, are Grade II listed with the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[4]
Address: Himley Hall Himley Park, DY3 4DF Dudley
Priory Park
Priory. Dudley Priory is a dissolved priory in Dudley, West Midlands, England. The ruins of the priory are located within Priory Park, alongside the Priory Estate, and is both a scheduled monument and Grade I listed. The ruins received this status on 14 September 1949.[5]
Address: Priory Road, Dudley (Dudley)
Dudley Zoo
Fun zoo with many endangered species. Dudley Zoological Gardens is a 40-acre zoo located within the grounds of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, in the Black Country region of the West Midlands, England. The Zoo opened to the public on 18 May 1937. It contains 12 modernist animal enclosures and other buildings designed by the architect Berthold Lubetkin and the Tecton Group. The zoo went into Justin receivership in 1977 and was purchased by Dudley Metropolitan Council. Dudley Zoo is now operated by Dudley and West Midlands Zoological Society, founded in 1978 and a registered charity. The gardens also hosts multiple events.[6]
Address: 2 The Broadway, DY1 4QB Dudley (Dudley)
Delph Locks
Historical landmark in Brierley Hill, England. Delph Locks or the Delph Nine are a series of eight narrow canal locks on the Dudley No. 1 Canal in Brierley Hill, in the West Midlands, England. They were opened in 1779, and reopened in 1967 following restoration of the Dudley Canal and the Stourbridge Canal in a joint venture between the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Society and the British Waterways Board.[7]
Baggeridge Country Park
Country park in Gospel End, England. Baggeridge Country Park is located within the South Staffordshire district of Staffordshire, England. Its entrance is on the A463 just west of Gospel End, a small Staffordshire village just beyond the borders of the Wolverhampton, Gornal and the surrounding Metropolitan Borough of Dudley.[8]
Address: Gospel End, DY3 4HB Dudley
Barrow Hill
Nature preserve in Brierley Hill, England. Barrow Hill Local Nature Reserve is a local nature reserve situated in Pensnett in the county of West Midlands, England. Its most distinctive feature, Barrow Hill, is the eroded remnant of a high level igneous intrusion that was formed 315 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The reserve was created in 2005.[9]
Saltwells Local Nature Reserve
Nature preserve in Brierley Hill, England. Saltwells Local Nature Reserve is situated in the Netherton area of Dudley Metropolitan Borough in West Midlands, England. The reserve, created in 1981, covers 247 acres and includes Saltwells Wood and part of Netherton Hill within its boundaries. The reserve encloses two Sites of Special Scientific Interest and one scheduled ancient monument.[10]
Address: Saltwells Lane, DY5 1AX Dudley (Dudley)
Church of St Edmund
Parish church in Dudley, England. The Church of Saint Edmund is a parish church on Castle Street in Dudley, West Midlands, England.
It is known locally as "Bottom Church", as opposed to St Thomas's parish church in High Street which is known as "Top Church".
The dedication is to the Anglo-Saxon King and Martyr, Edmund indicating the original church dated from the Anglo-Saxon period. Since Edmund died in 869 or 870 then the church must date from after this time, although there are no references to the church before the twelfth century. At the front of the present church are two sculptures showing a metal crown pierced by arrows - referring to the martyrdom of Edmund.
In 1190, it was noted as being within the possession of Dudley Priory. In 1646, during the English Civil War, Colonel Leveson ordered the demolition of the church. As a result, residents in the parish congregated at St. Thomas's Church in Dudley, which was repaired, and the parishes united.
St. Edmund's Church was subsequently rebuilt and was completed circa 1724. The reconstruction of the church was paid for by brothers Richard and George Bradley and by subscriptions from the parishioners. It was built of red brick with stone dressings and consisted of a chancel, nave, aisles, south porch and an embattled west tower.
The tradition of the church is Anglo-Catholic.[11]
Church of St Andrew
Parish church in Dudley, England. The Church of St Andrew, Netherton is an Anglican parish church situated in Netherton in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. The building was designed by Thomas Lee and it opened in 1830. In 1844 it became the parish church for Netherton.[12]
Address: 1 Crescent Rd, DY2 0NW Dudley (Dudley)
Bumble Hole Local Nature Reserve
Nature preserve in Dudley, England. Bumble Hole Local Nature Reserve is situated in the Netherton area of Dudley Metropolitan Borough in the county of West Midlands, England. This former industrial area now features canals, ponds, grassland and wooded areas. The reserve lies adjacent to the Warren's Hall Local Nature Reserve. It was declared a local nature reserve in 1996.[13]
Black Country Geopark
The Black Country UNESCO Global Geopark is a geopark in the Black Country, a part of the West Midlands region of England. Having previously been an ‘aspiring Geopark’, it was awarded UNESCO Global Geopark status on 10 July 2020.[14]
Parkhead Viaduct
Viaduct in Dudley, England. Parkhead Viaduct is a railway viaduct in Dudley, West Midlands, England. The original viaduct was a wooden structure erected in 1850 to carry the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway over Parkhead Locks on the Dudley Canal, near to the southern mouth of the Dudley Tunnel. The current brick viaduct was built in 1880 and it is believed that the original wooden structure is still encased within its successor.
Use of the viaduct had fallen by the late 1960s due to the closure of passenger stations on the route, but the line remained open until 19 March 1993, when the section of the railway between Walsall and Brierley Hill was closed. The most recent train believed to have crossed the viaduct was a cable laying train on 1 July 1993, nearly four months after the line's closure.
The section of track over Parkhead Viaduct was removed in about 1995, with most of the track between Highgate Road and Blowers Green Road following in 1998 due to the construction of a new road bridge over the line nearby. The structure of the viaduct is still intact, but has fallen into disrepair and will undergo extensive refurbishment in order to be reutilised, with 2023 being the likely completion date to the Wednesbury to Brierley Hill extension of the West Midlands Metro tram network, which will make use of the viaduct.[15]
Warren's Hall Country Park
Nature preserve in Rowley Regis, England. Warren's Hall Country Park is a local nature reserve situated in Sandwell Metropolitan Borough in the West Midlands of England. It lies next to Bumble Hole Local Nature Reserve. It includes ponds, canals, grassland, small wooded areas and the entrance to Netherton Canal Tunnel.[16]
Wednesbury Oak Loop
The Wednesbury Oak Loop, sometimes known as the Bradley Arm, is a canal in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and was originally part of James Brindley's main line, but became a loop when Thomas Telford's improvements of the 1830s bypassed it by the construction of the Coseley Tunnel. The south-eastern end of the loop was closed and in parts built over, following the designation of the entire loop as "abandoned" in 1954, including the section which was filled in at the beginning of the 1960s to make way for the Glebefields Estate in Tipton.[17]
Dudley Museum and Art Gallery
Museum in Dudley, England. Dudley Museum and Art Gallery was a public museum and art gallery located in the town centre of Dudley in the West Midlands, England. It was opened in 1883, situated within buildings on St James's Road, and remained at that site until its closure in 2016. Some of the museum collections have since been relocated to the Dudley Archives centre on Tipton Road.[18]
Address: 3 Priory Street, Dudley (Dudley)
Alder Coppice
Alder Coppice is a local nature reserve in West Midlands, England. It is near Sedgley, next to the Northway Estate, in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley.[19]
Pensnett Canal
The Pensnett Canal, also called Lord Ward's Canal was a private 1.25 miles long canal near Brierley Hill, West Midlands, England, which opened in 1840 and served the industrial enterprises of Lord Dudley's Estate. The engineer was Mathew Frost. Since its closure to navigation in 1950, much of it has been lost by overbuilding, but a small section at its junction with the Dudley Canal was restored in 1995, and the section through Brierley Hill remains in water, although it is polluted and not navigable.[20]