Coordinates: 52°27′43″N 2°09′59″W / 52.46193°N 2.16627°W / 52.46193; -2.16627
Wollaston is a suburb of Stourbridge, in West Midlands, England. It is within Dudley Metropolitan Borough. It is situated on the border between Dudley Metropolitan Borough and Staffordshire County (South Staffordshire district), and until 1974 was in Worcestershire. Wollaston is one mile from Stourbridge town centre.
Two primary schools serve Wollaston: St. James's C of E Primary and The Ridge Primary. Concerning secondary schools, the village is primarily served by Ridgewood High School (a Science Specialist College).
Wollaston is locally famous for Wollaston Hall, which once stood in the village but was disassembled and shipped abroad to an unknown location in North America It has been established that panelling and a fireplace from the Hall are now in the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, a building that bears a striking resemblance to the original Hall.
West Midlands may refer to:
West Midlands is a constituency of the European Parliament. It is represented by seven MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. In 2009, the constituency had been reduced to six seats, but also elected a "virtual MEP" who took her seat in the Parliament when the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect. The constituency was also previously represented by seven MEPs prior to the 2009 election.
The constituency corresponds to the West Midlands region of England, comprising the ceremonial counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands and Worcestershire.
It was formed as a result of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, replacing a number of single-member constituencies. These were Birmingham East, Birmingham West, Coventry and North Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Shropshire, Worcestershire and South Warwickshire, and parts of Peak District, Staffordshire East and Derby, and Staffordshire West and Congleton.
The West Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It covers the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley, Solihull, Walsall and West Bromwich. The city of Coventry is also located within the West Midlands county, but is separated from the conurbation to the west by several miles of green belt.
The region is geographically diverse, from the urban central areas of the conurbation to the rural western counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire which border Wales. The longest river in the UK, the River Severn, traverses the region southeastwards, flowing through the county towns of Shrewsbury and Worcester, and the Ironbridge Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Staffordshire is home to the industrialised Potteries conurbation, including the city of Stoke-on-Trent, and the Staffordshire Moorlands area, which borders the southeastern Peak District National Park near Leek. The region also encompasses five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Wye Valley, Shropshire hills, Cannock Chase, Malvern Hills, and parts of the Cotswolds. Warwickshire is home to the town of Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of the writer William Shakespeare. The West Midlands and Greater London are the only regions of England and of the United Kingdom which are landlocked.