Maps of Old Gornal (for a fiver!)

Over the last few months we have tried to give Yampy readers a flavour of some of our landmarks past and present, including the Old Mill, Ellowes Hall, Crooked House, and Gornal's Lost Pubs, to name but a few. If this has whetted your appetite for our history, you may be interested in two maps of Gornal that we are now able to offer. The Godfrey Edition of Old Ordnance Survey Maps are highly detailed representations of Gornal as it was more than a century ago. Each map is printed at about 14 inches to the mile, covering just one and a half square miles, and shows individual homes, pubs and churches, railway tracks, mine shafts, malthouses etc. The Gornal maps have a reference of 67.10 and 67.11. The former is titled Gornalwood & Himley Coalfield 1901, and includes High Arcal, Himley Wood, The Straits and Straits Green, Turner's Hill, Ellowes Hall, and the village up as far as Five Ways. The latter is titled Gornal & Wren's Nest 1901 and joins 67.10 at Five Ways, covering Ruiton as far as the Vale Street/Hill Street junction and Lake Street down to the Red Cow. Upper Gornal is shown from Club Row, past the Green Dragon and on towards Dudley and the Wrenner. The maps include fascinating historical notes by Angus Dunphy, and 67.11 is a family historian's delight because it lists Gornal's shopkeepers and tradespeople (and a few private residents) from Kelly's Directory of 1912. Names featured in our Roots section and elsewhere on the site crop up in the list; Alfred Allen, Baines, Ball, Bate, Bennett, Bodenham, Bradley, Evans, Fellows, Flavell, Gibbons, Greenaway, Guest, Hale, Harper, Hartill, Hickman, Hyde, Malpass, Marsh, Nock, Pugh, Raybould, Rollason, Round, Smart, Stanley, Tomlinson, Turner, Westwood, Williams.. and many more. Location and type of trade is given, and the entries cover both Upper and Lower Gornal even though the 67.11 map shows Upper Gornal only. We were interested to note for example that 3 Abbey Street (the Yampy registered office) was occupied by "Bowyer Jsph. Rd. butcher". Our landlord is Frank Bowyer, and the family shop is now Alan Whittle butchers. We are selling these maps for just £5 for the two, including UK delivery. To make a purchase by credit/debit card, visit www.blackcountryshop.co.uk. Alternatively, if you live in Gornal just email your address to admin@yampy.co.uk, giving a date/time that you will be at home (including evening/weekend if necessary) and we can deliver them to your door, generally within 24 hours. Elsewhere in the UK, please send a cheque for £5 made payable to YAMPY SOLUTIONS LTD. with your address on the reverse together with the words 'Gornal Maps'. Our address is: Yampy Solutions Ltd. 1st Floor The Courtyard, 3 Abbey Street, Gornal Wood, Dudley DY3 2ND. Should you live outside the UK please contact us at admin@yampy.co.uk before sending any money so that we can calculate delivery cost. Please note that we cannot sell the two maps separately, as the delivery cost would be uneconomical for us, although it is possible to purchase them individually elsewhere. If you would like to know first whether your house is included on the maps, send an email to us, again at admin@yampy.co.uk and we will try to help. Other areas of the Black Country are available, including Sedgley and Dudley - contact us if you would like to know more. We are sure that these maps will prove an invaluable reference to anyone interested in Gornal history.