B4484

The B4484 is an urban B-road that forms an eastern bypass of Wolverhampton. Despite its overall route, its quality is sufficiently low that it is never used in its entirety, but is instead used whilst travelling between the smaller centres along its route. Even then, there are often better alternatives, via the locally classified U99 and A454 between Wednesfield and Willenhall, and via the A454 and A463 between Willenhall and Bilston.

Route

B4484 between Wednesfield and Willenhall

Just south of Willenhall town centre

Approching the Bilston terminus

The route starts on A460 near to Scotlands Island, northeast of Wolverhampton city centre, before heading in a generally southwards direction, crossing B4156 after a few hundred yards. This section of the route is through generally leafy and quite pleasant residential areas and the road passes the King George V playing fields and the home ground of Wednesfield FC as it heads in towards Wednesfield Town Centre. There are two TOTSOs as the route reaches Wood End, turning away from the town centre over the Wyrley and Essington Canal before meeting the A4124 at a roundabout junction at Wednesfield High School.

After a short multiplex to the right, the route starts to leave Wednesfield on its next leg of the journey towards Willenhall. The route here is narrower than before, and generally less pleasant as it passes through a more industrial area. It passes into the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall at the junction with Broad Lane and in general south of this point it is more poorly maintained than before. The route passes over a bridge over the former Bentley Canal, which has been filled-in since the early 1980s, before passing a very old-fashioned petrol station in the northern parts of Willenhall. Again, the route is of a low standard, passing through the area of Little London before crossing the former Wolverhampton & Walsall Railway at the site of Willenhall Stafford Street station.

The route then TOTSOs once more, and the section between here and B4464 is traffic-calmed with speed humps - a fairly rare occurrence in the area for a B-class road. The route then reaches B4464 to the west of Willenhall town centre, where we have yet another short multiplex from here east into the town centre itself.

At The Dale, the multiplied routes diverge, with B4484 heading almost due south along Bilston Street (passing the site of Willenhall's other railway station, Willenhall Bilston Street, as we do so) and Rose Hill before turning west on Bilston Lane (meeting B4590 as it does so) and almost immediately crossing A454 at a roundabout GSJ. It then heads directly for Bilston town centre, passing the locally classified U99, which heads more directly back to Wednesfield, before heading through a lower-standard residential area. It passes The Robin 2 nightclub and Bilston police station before terminating on A41 in Bilston Town Centre.

History

The B4484 first came into being when unclassified roads were upgraded in around 1930. However, in common with all the roads around Willenhall, the B4484 has a somewhat confusing numbering history.

Wednesfield

The original route of B4484 through Wednesfield was as present as far as the roundabout at Wood End, where it met the route of A4124, which at the time ran through Wednesfield town centre. There was then a short multiplex, after which the B4484 headed south down Neachells Lane and then turned east along March End Road before meeting the present route at Waddens Brook Lane. This change took place during the late 1990s with the opening of the A4124 Wednesfield Way. There are some maps in existence that show B4484 using Alfred Squire Road as well as Neachells Lane, but this seems unlikely. Even more unlikely, some mapping appears to have an error on top of this mapping error - compounding it by using the number B4454.

Willenhall

Originally, B4484 terminated in Willenhall, passing south via Stafford Street and meeting the former B4157 in the town centre. With the town centre pedestrianisation in the early 1980s, the present route bypassing the town centre to the west was adopted.

With the completion of the A454 and A463 Black Country Route in the early 1990s, the B4484 gained an extension and became a single number for the Willenhall - Bilston route. It took over the then-remaining section of B4157, before taking over the former A463 (and a tiny section of the then-A454) to Bilston when that number was shifted to the newer road. At the former junction of B4157 and A454 at Rose Hill and Bilston Lane, the section of former A454 to the east is numbered B4590. However, that number is unsigned, and B4484 is used for all westbound signs on this route.