Wednesfield is a town and historic village in the City of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, It is east-northeast of Wolverhampton city centre and about from Birmingham and is part of the West Midlands conurbation. It was historically within the county of Staffordshire. Its name comes from the Old English Wōdnesfeld meaning Woden's Field, open land belonging to, or holy to, the high god of the Germanic Pantheon. It is reported by the English Dialectal Society in the publication "A Glossary of dialectal place-nomenclature" available on-line in the Internet Archive of The University of Toronto Library, that the place name "Wednesfield" is pronounced by the local populace as "Wencefield". Local areas include Ashmore Park and Wood End. There is also a formal garden at Wednesfield Park. Geography Wednesfield lies at (52.5998°, −2.0827°), and is located to the northeast of Wolverhampton city centre on the northern fringe of the West Midlands conurbation. It was historically part of the county of Staffordshire, and since 1974 has been part of the West Midlands metropolitan county. The south of the town lies over coal measures whilst the town centre has dolerite deposits and the area to the north lies over mudstone and sandstone. The town lies on generally flat land between 130m and 140m above sea level, rising to around 170m in the north. There are no navigable rivers within the town, although the original course of the River Tame crossed the south-east of the town. Governance Following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Wednesfield formed part of the Wolverhampton Poor Law Union, an inter-parish unit established to provide social security. This replaced an earlier arrangement where the Parish had operated a workhouse on Old Heath Road since 1723. In 1863 the Wednesfield Local Board of Health was established. With reference to the Local Government Act 1858, it was a regulatory body responsible for standards of hygiene and sanitation in the township, and replaced an earlier Sanitary Committee that was established in 1856. The Local Board was only in existence for three years before being split into two, one for Wednesfield itself, and one for Wednesfield Heath. Following the Local Government Act 1894, the rump of the parish (minus Wednesfield Heath and part of what became Short Heath Urban District) became an urban district within the administrative county of Staffordshire. With the exception of a loss of 24 acres (with a census population of 224)