Excavating the CA Archive: Black Country

In the autumn of 2020, the archaeologist Mike Hodder suggested that I focus a column on CA’s coverage of the Black Country over the years. Mike has spent a wonderful career working across the West Midlands, and he knows its history better than anyone I can think of. The difficulty is, though, where to start and where to end? Before examining CA’s archive, I thought it best to confirm my mental map of the area, only to discover the following comment: ‘the Black Country has no single set of defined boundaries… [and] it is said that “no two Black Country men or women will agree on where it starts or ends”.’ So, for the purposes of this column, I will focus on the metropolitan coun