Whitmore Reans

Whitmore Reans
Population	7,778 (2001 Census)
Metropolitan borough	Wolverhampton
Metropolitan county	West Midlands
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Wolverhampton
Postcode district	WV
Dialling code	01902
Police	West Midlands
Fire	West Midlands
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Wolverhampton South West

Whitmore Reans is in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It is situated to the north-west of the city centre, in the city council's Park and St Peter's wards. The name 'Whitmore' is said by topynmists to come from the Old English 'hwit' (white) and 'mor' (moor - which was used to describe a marshy area) - possibly a foggy area of marsh land, and 'Reans' is said to possibly mean a type of furrow created during ploughing, designed to drain the land. Another name used for this area was the 'Hungry Leas' - hungry being used to describe land which was little or no use for agriculture.

The terraced housing that makes up the Whitmore Reans residential area was built during the Victorian era, alongside cartways, small roads & tracks that radiated out from the town centre servicing fields that spread out towards Dunstall and Tettenhall. Newhampton Road (known then as Whitmore End Lane), Molineux Alley & what is now Staveley Road / Dunstall Road, as well as Waterloo Road (then called Wellington Road) were the routes through the fields that houses would be built alongside & between.

It has a shopping arcade which replaced some of the terraced housing called 'The Avion Centre', which has shops, take-aways and a bank. There is also a library, located just outside of the Avion Centre.

Newhampton Road East and Newhampton Road West (which form the boundary between the Park and St Peter's wards) are secondary roads, but form the main route through Whitmore Reans.

The areas population displays its recent history of immigration in the diversity of its residents. There are English, Afro-Caribbean, Asian, Polish, Kurdish, African, Irish & many other ethnicities residing in Whitmore Reans. It also has a small number of student residents who reside at the nearby university campus on Waterloo Road, and in private lets dotted through out the area. Historically, Whitmore Reans was considered to be quite a genteel part of Wolverhampton, being located next to the picturesque West Park. In the latter part of the Twentieth Century however the area declined sharply, and while the last 20 years has seen some of the older housing stock brought up to date it is still home to some of the lowest social grades in the City.

Molineux Stadium, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers

Since 1889, Whitmore Reans has been dominated by the Wolverhampton Wanderers football ground, The Molineux Stadium, which stands on the eastern side of Waterloo Road. However, all signs of the original stadium disappeared during the first half of the 20th century and the oldest part of the stadium was added in 1978.

In 2000, as part of the regeneration, The Newhampton Arts Centre, a community arts centre was developed with lottery funding on the site of the old municipal grammar school and provides a venue for a culturally diverse range of arts activities.

Wolverhampton Police have a base in Whitmore Reans at Staveley House on Great Hampton Street. The Park and St Peter's neighbourhood policing teams are based there and work from out of the building, although it is not open to the public, apart from for specific police surgeries.

One of the officers based at Staveley House, PCSO Lee Haynes, regularly tweets about policing in the area on the social networking site twitter (@pcso31115wmp).

The Park and St Peter's neighbourhood policing teams regularly feedback policing news to local residents via a dedicated Facebook group called "Wolverhampton Police in Whitmore Reans".

Further Reading

http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/articles/MolineuxAlley/MolineuxAlley01.htm