Rusty Brook

Rusty Brook was a local name for the uppermost section of the River Tame around Stow Heath and Stowlawn in Bilston, West Midlands, England. The name referred particularly to the formerly open and heavily polluted stream crossing the former colliery land on which the Stowlawn housing estate was subsequently built.

The precise downstream extent of the name is uncertain. Modern descriptions treat the watercourse as the Wolverhampton or Willenhall Arm of the River Tame rather than as a separate tributary.

Status and name

Rusty Brook is best understood as a historical or colloquial name for part of the upper Tame, not as the name of a separately mapped modern tributary. The Environment Agency identifies the wider watercourse as part of the heavily modified Willenhall Arm within the Upper Tame catchment. No reliable source has been found defining an exact point at which the local name ceased to be used.

History

Before the development of Stowlawn, the brook crossed land extensively disturbed by coal mining. Local residents recalled it as a narrow stream containing industrial waste and described it as an open sewer. Frank Sharman's history of Stowlawn states that no official name for the brook was found, but that it appears to have been generally known locally as the Rusty Brook. It was described as grossly polluted, with some residents claiming it was once considered among the most polluted watercourses in England.

Work to prepare the Stowlawn estate began after the Second World War. The former pools were filled, the ground was levelled and parts of the stream were placed in underground pipes. Housing and other development subsequently concealed most of its upper course; it was still above ground as late as 1960.

Course

Victorian Ordnance Survey maps trace the sources of Rusty Brook further back, to the site of the old Stow Heath colliery, which is now East Park, Wolverhampton.

The modern headwater has been traced to marshy ground near the northern end of the City of Wolverhampton College campus on Wellington Road, Bilston (today Larkspur Close; ). It formerly crossed the open, post-industrial land at Stowlawn and was remembered near the bottom of Marchant Road. Local accounts also place the brook near Lawnside Green and Park View Road.

From Stowlawn the watercourse continues generally north-eastwards beneath developed land towards southern Willenhall. It later becomes visible as the Wolverhampton or Willenhall Arm of the River Tame and is joined by Waddens Brook near School Street. The use of the name Rusty Brook as far downstream as this confluence has not been demonstrated by published historical evidence.