Charlemont and Grove Vale

Charlemont with Grove Vale is a political ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the English Midlands constituency of West Bromwich East. This Sandwell ward population as taken at the 2011 census was 11,964.

The ward is made up of several neighbourhoods including, Charlemont Farm, Bustlehome Mill, Church Vale, and the leafier neighbourhoods of Charlemont, Bird End, Wigmore and Grove Vale. It also covers part of the Sandwell Valley. The ward has two Labour councillors and one Conservative councillor.

The area became known as 'Charly Mount' by c.1723 and was home to Charlemont Hall, proceeded by Crump Hall. The hall stood on the east side of the present day Charlemont Crescent until 1948.

The ward was also home to Wigmore School, erected in 1872, for the maintenance and education of Children chargeable to the Walsall and West Bromwich Poor Law Unions. The buildings, situated on a hill overlooking the Tame Valley, were erected in the Elizabethan style, and included an Infirmary. Following the Local Government Act 1929, all poor law responsibility was transferred to the Local Authority, and Wigmore was administered by the Education Committee. From 1935, Wigmore became an "Approved School" which continued until the 1960s when it was transferred for use as Sandwell Council Offices. The building failed to get listed building status and despite local pressure was demolished by Sandwell Council in 2002, to make way for a new housing development. The Gatehouse is still in existence.

With private and council residential developments growing in the 1920s, an infant school opened in the area in 1929 and was followed a year later by new junior and senior schools. The buildings were expanded in 1937, with the senior school becoming a secondary modern school in 1944. However, its popularity fell after the opening of nearby Churchfields High School in 1955 (this school eventually closed in July 2001) and the senior school closed in 1967.

Bishop Asbury Cottage is located on the A4041 Newton Road on the Grove Vale/Great Barr border. The 18th century cottage, now a Grade II listed museum was the boyhood home of Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist Bishop.

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