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Highley is a large village , civil parish and electoral ward in Shropshire, England, on the west bank of the River Severn and on the B4555 road. Highley has a population of approximately 3,100(2001). ==History== Highley began as a rural farming community, including an entry in the Domesday Book, later becoming a significant area for stone quarrying which provided some of the stone for Worcester Cathedral. Coal mining began in the area in the Middle Ages but in the late 19th century the village was revolutionised by coal mining with large scale operations really beginning in 1878. A period of intense house-building also followed, giving Highley its distinctive red-brick terraced miners' houses. In the 1930s, during the mine's peak production period, the mine was extended to the neighbouring village of Alveley across the River Severn. Both an underground tunnel and a bridge (known as 'the Pit Bridge') were constructed between the two villages. Two historical bridging points exist at Bridgnorth to the North and Bewdley to the South, and whilst the bridge belonging to the former National Coal Board was deemed unsafe for general vehicular traffic there exists in Hampton Loade a private bridge used by the emergency services. The mine closed in the late 1960s due to subsidence and waterlogging. The bridge remained open to bridleway traffic only, again due to subsidence from the steep valley sides. The mine area on the Alveley (east) side was converted into an industrial estate in the late 1960s as coal mining ceased, and then was subsequently landscaped into the Severn Valley Country Park in the late 1980s. Initially this was as an exercise to use trees to shore up the coal spoils, and later as a tourist destination which now includes public artwork and a sculpture trail, The Seam Pavement Trail. The trail is a series of seven bronze plaques depicting Highley's past and incorporates the designs of West Midlands artist Saranjit Birdi. He included many miner's nicknames into the artwork, gleaned from archive information and research within the local community. Nicknames of the miners, such as 'Dick the Devil', 'Joyful Clappers', 'Cider Biscuit', 'Flaming Heck' and others, are incorporated into the work. Birdi calls it "a seam through time", echoing the skilfully mined coal seams being laid down and later extracted over time. One plaque, 'Plough and Lady', depicts Lady Godiva, who owned Highley Manor in the 11th Century. Birdi is also responsible for another sculpture entitled 'A Song of Steam' at Highley station. Shortly after 2000, the bridge was declared unsafe and a new footbridge began to be constructed (completed 2006). On a national level, Highley is most known for being the village where 17-year-old murder victim Lesley Whittle lived and from which she was abducted by Donald Neilson, the Black Panther, in 1975. Lesley, the daughter of bus firm owner George Whittle (1905–1967), was taken from her home on 13 January 1975 and found strangled on an underground ledge beneath Bathpool Park near Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, on 7 March that year. Neilson was found guilty of murdering Lesley Whittle and three other people (as well as wounding a Dudley security guard, who later died having never fully recovered from his injuries) at his trial in the summer of 1976, and sentenced to life imprisonment. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Highley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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