West Mercia

Girlguiding West Mercia takes its name from one of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms Mercia, which later changed to the Midlands. We cover the area around the city of Wolverhampton and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall and West Bromwich; as well as parts of the surrounding South Staffordshire area. The Girlguiding county of West Mercia incorporates the region widely known as the Black Country.

Although the heavy polluting industries that gave the region its name have long since disappeared, a sense of shared history and tradition in the area has kept the term in use. Today the term is used to describe the four Metropolitan District Council areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. During the Industrial Revolution this area became one of the most industrial parts of Britain with coal mines, coking, iron foundries and forges, glass factories, brick works and steel mills. These industries produced a high level of air pollution which covered everything with thick black soot, hence the term Black Country.