IT might be celebrating its 70th birthday this year, although some feel this is a couple of years too late, but in fact the Dines Green area of Worcester is a lot older than that.

To be fair, the bash is to mark the age of the housing development, not the postal address, because there was a time when Dines Green was a peaceful hamlet of six country cottages and just down the road was an old mill by the stream at Laugherne Brook.

This rural idyll was obliterated by Worcester City Council’s decision to use the area for one of its two post-Second World War large council housing estates with Dines Green on the west side of the River Severn and Warndon on the east.

Until then the land had been part of a wide belt of gentile countryside separating Comer Gardens and St John’s from the small collection of cottages that made up Dines Green.

Four of them tucked away in the area that is now covered by Dudley Close while there were a further pair of thatched cottages a short distance away along a narrow lane lined by high hedges.

It was the perfect bucolic country setting.

Talking to my retired colleague Mike Grundy in 1992, 83-year-old Victor Corbett, who was born and bred in the area, even recalled the names of some of those families who lived in the Dines Green cottages.

They included Partridge, Wright, Whiting, Blacke and Gregory.

The Gregorys had a smallholding near their cottage which supplied their vegetable stall in the former Worcester Market Hall.

Not far away stood Henwick Mill just off the Martley Road near the city boundary.

In Victorian times it had a substantial water wheel in full working order and driven by Laugherne Brook.

Unfortunately, the wheel disappeared around the time of the Second World War and with it the fascination of this location.

Although Henwick Mill House remains to this day.

As for Dines Green estate, it was built on former farming land by contractors Spicers and consisted of a mix of semi-detached homes and large blocks of flats.

The vast majority of the properties were built using precast concrete which meant they had to be updated in the late 1980s-early 90s with the concrete being stripped away and replaced by brick.

The blocks of flats that were also built using precast concrete were demolished and replaced by new apartments.

The whole process took about 10 years and cost more than £17 million.

However, one unfortunate concern for the Dines Green community over the years has been the loss of its pubs.

While on the other side of the city Warndon has managed to hang on to some, 'Dinesey' has lost all three.

Answers why on a postcard.

In the meantime, happy birthday Dines Green!