Wood End, Kingsbury, Warwickshire
Wood End is a former Pit village in North Warwickshire, England. It lies to the south east of Tamworth and close to the border with Staffordshire. It grew around the former Kingsbury Colliery but now it serves as a commuter village to Tamworth. It has a church, a primary school, a co-operative store, a working men's club and a village hall. The population of Wood End is 2,205, but from the 2011 Census has been included in Kingsbury.
Name
The official name of the village is Wood End, from its founding in 1890, although it is sometimes written as Woodend. The name is derived from the village's position at the end of the nearby Kingsbury Wood, a pine plantation. Parts of the village are still known as Edge Hill. To avoid confusion with other Wood Ends the name of the nearby town, Atherstone is added. The name Wood End, North Warwickshire is sometimes used, but rarely, to avoid confusion with Wood End near Fillongley.History
The land on which the village was built consisted of fields belonging to two farms, Delves Farm and Poplars Farm, both of which exist today. There were two woods, Edge Hill Wood and Smith's Wood, but only the former survives today. There was also a small settlement of several houses called Edge Hill, and a United Free Methodist Chapel, which closed in the late 1970s. The first houses were built in 1890 to house workers for Kingsbury Colliery, which opened in 1897. A working men's club opened in 1905, and still remains open in the original building. Wood End became a village in 1906 with the opening of the parish church, St Michael & All Angels Church.A village hall was later built in the 1960s. Also added to the housing stock was Glenville Avenue and Delves Crescent, which were council housing. In the late 1970s Birchfield Close was constructed for private housing, and the village was expanded in 1985 when a new estate, Pinewood Avenue, was built to the west. A school, Wood End Primary School, was opened in 1911. The original school building no longer exists. In 1995 the school was expanded. On 13 August 1998 the older part of the school burnt down, but it has since been rebuilt. During the village's expansion over the years, parts of the village, such as Glenville Avenue, steadily ate into the surrounding woodland.
Much of the village dates from the 1980s, with the old housing being demolished and replaced. The older housing stock remains on one side of Wood Street, on the Working Mens Club side of Tamworth road, on Johnson Street, and on part of Smith Street. The most recent addition to the residential area is Meadow View, completed in 2005, which was built on scrub land previously occupied by prefabs. One of the oldest houses from before it became Wood End, Edge Hill House, was demolished in 2019 for new homes, stood next to where the Methodist chapel was. The site can be seen on the 1884 Ordnance Survey County Series map for Warwickshire along with just a few others.
Demographics
The population, in 2001, for the 002D, in which Wood End is the only settlement, was 2,205. According to the 2001 Census the population of the Hurley and Wood End ward was 3,642. Over 99.5% of people describe themselves as White British with 89 people from other ethnic groups. The village has 1,820 female inhabitants and 1,822 male inhabitants.Geology
The village is above sea level and is situated on a small hill. The Warwickshire Coalfield underlies the village. Adjacent to Wood End is Kingsbury Wood, which is semi-ancient woodland in parts, part of the former Forest of Arden. Kingsbury Wood has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is owned by the Ministry of Defence. Mining tracks used to run through Kingsbury Wood, of which there is still evidence. A small stream arises in Wood End, next to Glenville Avenue, and flows through the centre of the oldest part of the wood into Kingsbury village and eventually outflows into the River Tame. At the lower end of Tamworth Road, a freight line that previously serving the mines at Dordon and Baxterley now serves the rail freight terminal st Birch Coppice Business Park.Climate
With an average temperature of 11 °C, Wood End has a higher average temperature than most of England.Governance
The village is part of the Kingsbury civil parish. When the village was built in 1890 it was part of the Tamworth Rural Sanitary District. In 1894, under the Local Government Act 1894, it became part of the newly formed Tamworth Rural District. In 1965 the Tamworth Rural District was abolished and Wood End became part of the Atherstone Rural District. In 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 the Atherstone Rural District became part of the newly formed district of North Warwickshire. Wood End is part of the Hurley and Wood End Ward, which is represented by Ann Lewis and Hayden Philips, both Labour. As the ward is an old mining community it is considered a Labour safe seat. Wood End is covered by the Kingsbury Ward in Warwickshire County Council and is represented by the Labour Brian Moss. It is part of the North Warwickshire parliamentary constituency and the current MP is Conservative Craig Tracey. Prior to Brexit in 2020 it was part of the West Midlands in the European Parliament.Economy
There is a Co-operative store and post office that is part of the Tamworth Co-operative Society, a garage on Tamworth Road, and a hairdressers in Wood Street. Just outside the village there is a factory owned by the Swedish flooring manufacturer Pergo and Planters garden centre.Between Wood End and Piccadilly is Kingsbury Link Business Park. Until 1968 the majority of employed people living in the village worked in nearby collieries. Today the majority of those in employment work in Tamworth, with some working in Birmingham and Coventry, with manufacturing being the most common type of employment, followed by wholesale and retail. For the ward of Hurley and Wood End out of 2,629 people 1,791 describe themselves as Economically active and 838 describe themselves as Economically inactive and 274 are retired with the most common number of hours worked per week 38 to 48 hours.