Any history of Amblecote, no matter how brief, would be incomplete without mention of its big houses.

Of course, one magnate’s big house is the next one’s hovel, and Amblecote in common with many areas overtaken by urbanisation and industry, would have seen the sequential erection and demolition of every kind of hall and house over the centuries. Few large dwellings are (or at least used to be) worth more than the coal lying under them and our less historically fastidious ancestors cheerfully reduced their half timbered halls to pit props provided the profits were large enough. A glimpse of what once existed is provided on even relatively modern maps which show ‘Amblecote Hall’ and ‘Amblecote Hall Farm’ on Amblecote Bank; remnants of a once important and ancient estate, both buildings demolished after the Second World War.

However, by the 18th Century three conventional ‘big houses’ stood adjacent to the Stourbridge to Wolverhampton Road and two are still with us.

‘The Hill’, on high ground adjacent to Holloway End, now provides the core building and grounds of Corbett Hospital. This was formerly the home of Thomas Rogers a glass manufacturer. In 1893 John Corbett, a Worcestershire salt magnate and considerable philanthropist vested the estate in trustees for conversion to a hospital. Now in the hands of Dudley Area Health Authority the future of ‘The Corbett’ is limited, with those whose job it to realise assets that aren’t theirs constantly anxious to sell its land for development.

Meanwhile a second large house, Dennis Hall (named after the 12th century family of Deynis), was built in the 1760’s by Thomas Hill, founder of a dynasty of important ironmasters, who developed extensive holdings in Staffordshire, and at Blaenavon in South Wales. The Hills, made rich by thier industrial activities, also funded the building of Christ Church in Lye, as well as other churches and schools both in the Black Country and Wales. Dennis Hall, which eventually bacame part of the Thomas Webb Glassworks, formerly stood shamefully ruinous having been neglected by developers, its beautiful plasterwork entrance hall destroyed by fire, though pressure from local people and an appeal the Secretary of State to wave restrictive planning rules have saved its shell for refurbishment into luxury flats.

The third house was ‘The Platts’, a mansion re-built in the 1760’s to house another rich industrialist. The story of its demise is typical of many large houses in urban areas, with the land around it gradually sold off for residential building until finally even the house itself was sub-divided. It was demolished in 1967.

As in most Black Country areas, industrial premises and residential buildings often stood cheek by jowl, interspersed with farmland. Indeed, even now Amblecote is within sight of countryside across the Stour valley, something that would have been even more obvious in 1905-15, as in-fill urbanisation had yet to take place.