I used to come back from Wolverhampton on the 4 o'clock milk train. It had a coach on the back for a few passengers, mainly schoolchildren, and about six covered wagons to carry milk churns. The churns were tapered at the top and each held 17 gallons.
After 1924 I went to school in Wolverhampton to the Girls' High School. In the morning I caught the 8.5 train to town and returned on the milk train. I walked from home, leaving at 7.40am and getting back there about 5pm.
There was very little traffic and very few cars. Most people I saw going to work in Codsall used a bicycle. Harry Wilkes ran Roseville Dairy. He was a very large gentleman. Each morning I would see him taking down the shutters on York's shop. This was a very cluttered shop. There was a story about someone wanting something on a high shelf and Mr York said: "If you come back next week I'll have the steps out."
In those days there was still a wall around the Bull Inn. After the First World War a lot of families from Darlaston, Bilston and the Black Country came to live in Codsall. Some would have been people who had made their money from war contracts. In between the wars Mr Brotherton began to build houses in Chapel Lane and Broadway. Some houses down Elliotts Lane were built between the wars, others are post-war. There were of course the big houses in Codsall. Flemmyng House was owned by the Twentymans. The Mount - that belonged to a Loveridge, and another Loveridge, (presumably a brother), had the Grange in Bilbrook. I think they were ironfounders.
Off the Square in Station Road was the Codsall Supply Company. The proprietor, Mr H A Jones, occupied an old white house, now demolished. The site is now a car park. They ran a corn merchants business and there was a field at the back. As you went in there were all sorts of storage buildings for wheat and barley etc. It was quite a sizeable business. They had several lorries and employed quite a few staff.
QUARRIES IN CODSALL
There were several quarries in the area. There was a quarry along the railway line between Histons Hill and Birches Bridge, another very big one at Kingswood, two in Histons Hill where Red Rock Drive is and another on the corner with Chapel Lane where a Georgian style house stands now. The sandstone cottage in Histons Hill was built of local stone and it used to have a sweet briar hedge in front of it.The man who owned it was the Workhouse master in Wolverhampton. A great deal of the stone was used for building local churches and a lot was used for local walls, many of which still survive.
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