Westcroft, Staffordshire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Not a village or even a hamlet. Source 1 is a photograph of a farm. Source 2 is a map. Source 3 mentions the farm in Source 1. Source 4 mentions the name of the place. Source 5 doesn't even appear to mention it. It is practically an orphan having two links to main space (although one of these is also up for deletion). The article itself gives us its location and says it is primarily residential. And that's it. I am not seeing anything that gives a credible claim to notability, even with the latitude shown to places. KJP1 (talk) 12:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. KJP1 (talk) 12:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 12:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I don't have strong feelings either way, but I'm not sure it's true to say that this is "not even a hamlet". We do have a problem with people creating articles for "places" that turn out to be just a farm and a word on an ordnance survey map, but in this case Westcroft has signs announcing it on entry (on Google Streetview), is a Westcroft Ward on Essington parish council, has a Westcroft Neighbourhood Watch, is the name of the bus stops. I'm not saying that these things necessarily indicate notability, only that this instance is not a case of somebody mistaking the name of a farm on a map and inventing an entire place from it. Joe D (t) 12:51, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Point taken. But even if it is a hamlet, and the article just calls it a residential area, I'm still not seeing any claim to Notability. KJP1 (talk) 13:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Essington: looking further at this and at Underhill, Staffordshire, I would merge them both into their parish, as is fairly common for unremarkable hamlets that will never have more than a couple of paragraphs to be said about them. Joe D (t) 13:08, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect to Essington#Essington Parish. Insufficient material to pass the GNG. Rupples (talk) 17:14, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Once you all get to the early 19th century histories of Staffordshire and discover that there was a Hilton Park in Hilton township in the Cuttleston hundred, of which only Hilton Hall remains; which is, contrary to what Wikipedia says, the actual source of the name for Hilton Park services (and apparently all of the other things Bing Maps tells me are called Hilton Park something around there); and which encompassed West Croft Farm and Essington Manor, then you will know what the actual encyclopædic subject is here. Hilton Park and Hilton do not cover any of this, observe. We are missing this almost entirely, because we only cover 1 building. Uncle G (talk) 18:08, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • White, William (1834). "HILTON". History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Staffordshire. Sheffield: Robert Leader. p. 235.
  • "H.C. Vernon, Hilton Park Estate, Wolverhampton". The reports of Andrew Thompson to the Inclosure Commissioners. Collections for a History of Staffordshire. Staffordshire Record Society. 1996. pp. 125–127.
  • "West Croft Farm, Essington". Staffordshire Past Track.
  • Useful for creating Hilton, or expanding Hilton Hall. But for this? KJP1 (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • We all have tools that can edit the content and change the title of the page. And now we all know that the subject isn't a "residential area"; which was unresearched rubbish, but unresearched rubbish that can be edited. Nor is the farm the real subject. This is exactly the same situation as with Grove Avenue, London (AfD discussion) and Hanwell Park 15 years ago. That was fixed by editing and page moving, too. Uncle G (talk) 23:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, we've established that Westcroft is a residential area, albeit a small one about which there will likely never be more than a stub of encyclopedic content to be written – we would normally cover such areas within their parish articles. If you want to write an article about Hilton Park, it would be odd to start it from an article of which you do not intend to keep the title or any of the content. Even if you did create a Hilton Park article and mention Westcroft in it, it would be more use to readers who are looking for information about the settlement for the redirect to be to the Essington article. Joe D (t) 00:33, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        • Read what is right in front of you. Even the nomination notes that the sources establish that this was a farm; and explains that the claim to being a "residential area" is unsupported by any actual sources, as it wouldn't be because it was not and still is not one; the farm (with its moat!) even being still in the middle of farmland on modern maps. The way to address this farm is to refactor it into the actual historical subject that encompassed the farm. Uncle G (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree with Joe D. I've added a sentence to the Essington article, so don't think this needs merging. There's nothing about the farm in this article except the source, but detail could be added in Essington. Hilton, including Hilton Park, is a separate parish that nowadays doesn't include Westcroft (if it ever did) and it seems simpler to create a new article for Hilton parish or Hilton Park, if thought notable, than repurpose this. Rupples (talk) 12:52, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        • You actually don't agree if you call this a farm, as you just did. Steinsky is asserting that this is a "residential area", which is an unsourced and actually false claim by the article that we shouldn't be basing decisions upon, and called it a "hamlet" in a preceding rationale. Neither is true; and obviously neither is a basis for a good rationale. Actual history books have this as a farm, and go on about Hilton Park and all of the bits and pieces of the Hilton Park estate back in the early middle 19th century. It's mad to think that renaming and refactoring this, which anyone can do, is "simpler" than the whole effort of funnelling the work onto one of the few people with administrator tools. Uncle G (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Essington. My source search lists this as a farm, and the index of the best source I found says "see Essington." However I do see that there is a physical sign announcing you are entering Westcroft, so I think this can possibly be saved. SportingFlyer T·C 20:42, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Essington: non-notable area.PamD 23:44, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• It's mad that there's this whole ruckus on the Administrators' Noticeboard about the article creator egregiously misinterpreting sources, when SRS 1996, p. 125 (a reprint of a report published in 1864, note) is right there, saying

  These farms called Essington Manor and Westcroft comprise part of the Hilton Park estate, which is situate about 5 miles to the eastward of Wolverhampton and consists of upwards of 2,000 acres.

  and White 1834, p. 235 is right there saying

  HILTON, a township and prebend in the East Division of Cuttleston Hundred, 5 miles N.N.E. of Wolverhampton, is a tithe-free estate, consisting of three farms, and HILTON PARK, the beautiful seat of Henry Charles Edward Vernon Graham Esq.

  and yet here people are still arguing on the basis that this is an "area" or a "hamlet" or somehow part of Essington, the adjacent township that the very same source White 1834, p. 249 directly contracts this assertion by saying

  BUSHBURY, or Byshbury parish, comprises the two townships of Bushbury and Essington, the former in the Seisdon and the latter in the Cuttleston hundred.

  and goes on at White 1834, p. 251 to say

  ESSINGTON township, 4¼ miles N.N.E. of Wolverhampton, is a district of scattered houses, mostly occupied by colliers; but the coal mines here are now nearly exhausted. H. C. E. Vernon Graham, Esq. of Hilton park, is lord of the manor, and owner of most of the land.

  . Indeed, the GeoHack in this very article leads almost directly to this 1880s map that shows Hilton, Bushbury, Essington, Hilton Park, and the Manor Farm and Westcroft Farm. Surely we should be better at this reading of sources lark than the article creator is! But collectively we're proving ourselves not to be. Uncle G (talk) 07:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It's 2025, not 1834. I'm sure White was correct in describing Essington as a township of scattered houses in 1834. Meanwhile, Wikipedia needs to describe what the situation is in 2025. Essington is now a civil parish of more than just scattered houses, and as we established sometime earlier in this discussion, Westcroft is now an area in that parish.. Joe D (t) 07:52, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Quite right. It looks as though there still is a Westcroft Farm but I don't often see farms mentioned in village/parish articles. Could be, especially if it includes listed buildings - but a quick check of Historic England shows it doesn't. There is a special school, technically in Westcroft though accessed from Underhill. Rupples (talk) 13:41, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per WP:GEOLAND. Clearly a separate settlement officially recognised by the council. Signs are only erected for such settlements. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:26, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Did anybody actually google this? Here's an example of houses for sale in Westcroft right now [1]. Results in the British Newspaper Archive show that it was a farm in the 19th century, and there was still a farm there in the 1940s, but there were already houses by then too, and more spacious, detached houses being built and sold there later in the 20th century and in this century. Definitely a named residential area and meets WP:GEOLAND. RebeccaGreen (talk) 02:42, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Of course Google has been searched, seems a bit remiss to question this. There's many houses for sale in many neighbourhoods, suburbs, informal areas on primelocation.com - not every single place gets its own Wikipedia page. GEOLAND gives a presumption of notability, but it's open to question here, and in any case, if after searching for sources little is found to write about the place that presumption is rebuttable. But if you've found WP:SIGCOV put your sources up for evaluation, otherwise Westcroft may be better merged/redirected into its parish or town as many UK places are and have been, some at AfD. Rupples (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I questioned it because the nominator wrote "Not a village or even a hamlet" and referred to sources in the article, with no mention of WP:BEFORE, and another editor wrote "My source search lists this as a farm". Discussing deletion on the basis that there is only a farm there, and that is not a legally recognised residential area, could lead to out-of-date assumptions. WP:GEOLAND says "Populated places without legal recognition are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG." It doesn't say that populated places with legal recognition ("even if their population is very low") are considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the GNG. WP:GEOLAND in fact says nothing at all about parishes (civil or ecclesiastical) - is there some other notability guideline for parishes and parts of parishes that editors advocating for merging are relying on? RebeccaGreen (talk) 15:55, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It certainly isn’t a parish. We are considering it on a case by case basis. Do you have any sources that we can consider? Other than that some houses are for sale there? KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The Ordnance Survey Open Names database has Westcroft as a suburban area (SJ80 file download). It may need to pass the GNG, or it may have presumed notability under NPLACE - depends how that guideline is interpreted. Despite searches we haven't found a great deal to write about Westcroft. In effect, Westcroft's a kind of linear spillover of Wolverhampton's suburbs along the A460 road into the neighbouring parish of Essington, probably from the 1930s onwards - an early 20th century OS map shows Westcroft Farm and what may be one or two dwellings. Rupples (talk) 21:14, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I have added some sources and information to the article. As I wrote in my Keep !vote above, it is a named residential area, a populated legally recognized place (with over 380 electors in 2022) and meets WP:GEOLAND. I don't believe that it also needs to meet WP:GNG (or why do we have notability guidelines?), and also doesn't need to meet unwritten policies or guidelines about parishes. RebeccaGreen (talk) 14:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  RebeccaGreen - Your additions are looking weak. Do you have any sigcov of this area that doesn’t Fail Verification? KJP1 (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  While WP:GEOLAND may apply here and give a presumption that Westcroft merits an article, WP:N states it does not guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. It's because there's so little coverage that a merge/redirect to the parish has been suggested as a better way to introduce Westcroft to readers. Rupples (talk) 01:10, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]