Wolverhampton 76 - all change

'   • Wolverhampton 76 - mobile version.   alt video version
The shock of the new' - Wolverhampton was not the only town being transformed into some post modernist Utopia in the nineteen seventies. And why not? It was still an age of great optimism, so out with the old and in with the sleek, minimalist new. All shiny polished chrome and reinforced concrete with a bit of modern art work thrown in - i.e. 'Rock Form', the striking modernist, Barbara Hepworth sculpture placed in the Wulfrun Centre....
Most of what you see on the orignal 8mm footage shot in 1976 has gone or changed almost beyond recognition apart from a few shady corners lurking around the outskirts of the town. Some of the town's fabric has been transported to the 'Black Country Museum', e.g : the Wednesfield Road Canal Bridge and possibly the water fountain.
Much of what was the site of the old GWR Low Level Railway Station seen in the 76 footage should have been frozen in time as part of the town's industrial and social heritage. But the public house, now appropriately known as 'The Great Weatern' remains as a popular Real Ale pub. Note - the old M&B and Butlers inn sign a thing of the past. The iconic Victorian factory where the M&B flag proudly fluttered over Butler's Brewery now sadly falling to ruin and is as they casually say 'waiting for a developer'. It looks so sad now dwafted by a huge twenty-first century monstrosity, as pictured in the last part of the video....
Yet some things remain as emblematic of this once great town St Peter's Church along side the statue of the town's Saxon founder 'Lady Wulfruna'. The stately Art Gallery remains and so does the Prince Consort, Albert mounted upon his horse in Queen Square and so much admired by Queen Victoria, the unmistakable Chubbs red brick building original home of world famous 'Chubbs Lock and Safe Company'. Then there's the renowned 'Molineux Stadium', hallowed football ground of the much celebrated Wolverhampton Wanderers.....but as it used to be with peeps of the oldest street in Wolverhampton North Street that used to be the main route out of town northwards towards Stafford....The Mander Centre featured in the 76 film still towers over the town and has become iconic or at least become acceptable over the decades.
For a taste of the old Wolverhampton wander down to the canal side and walk under the lovely old bridges and beside the 21 locks towards Compton, there you can easily think of the blood, sweat and tears shed by our ancestors.
The video ends as the unchanging, elegant and somehow reassuring spire of Holy Trinity Church surrounded in midst of a really gross urbane sprawl, can yet be seen from an almost entirely green bower on the edge of town.
Take what you can from these images most of them shot on an old 'Super 8' cine camera early one Summer Sunday morning back in 1976.

Audio track - 'The Zodiac' - 'Down to the Bone'.