Bowling Alley was a thriving community from the mid nineteenth century. In the 1860s the new London Midland Railway line cut through the community, and we do not have eye-witness accounts of reactions to the construction of a via-duct and the notable Skew Bridge had on the property holders. Plots in the Cross Street/Heath Road area were auctioned in the 1880s, but Watlers Farm and cottages on Queens Road were already established. The British Land Company bought land including what was later developed as Cravells Road in the early 1860s, but development did not start until the 1880s. See The History of Bowliing Alley and the Businesses of Bowling Alley & Southdown to see how the community expanded.
