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Great
Wyrley, formerly a mining town with metal-working on its
outskirts. The Wyrley & Essington Canal passes nearby.
Great
Wyrley has become an increasing popular dormitory town for
Birmingham and Wolverhampton since the opening of the M6 Toll
private motorway in 2003.
The area
is notorious as the scene of the 'Great Wyrley Outrages'.
At the
turn of the 20th century George Edalji, a local solicitor,
was convicted of a series of macabre incidents including six
horse slashings in Pit Meadow. After Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
was asked in investigate the case Edalji was released and
exonerated by a Home Office committee in 1907.
Local
myth has it that the Outrages were perpetrated by the 'Wryley
Gang' but Sir Arthur believed they were the work of the local
butcher's boy. These events are fictionalised in the novel
'Arthur & George' by Julian Barnes, nominated for the
2005 Man Booker Prize.
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Great Wyrley
