Birmingham and the parishes in the centre and north of the modern conurbation were probably colonised by the Tomsaete or Tomsæte ("Tame-dwellers"), an Anglian tribe living in the valley of the Tame[8] and around Tamworth during the Kingdom of Mercia.

However, some of its tributary streams, including Waddens Brook, rise as far to the west and north as Bilston and Wednesfield in the city of Wolverhampton.

Victorian Ordnance Survey maps trace the sources of the Tame further back, to the site of the old Stow Heath colliery, which is now Wolverhampton's East Park.

The stream runs invisibly but generally north-eastward through Stowlawn, and then cuts across the southern edge of Willenhall, appearing briefly among the warehouses, and picking up reinforcement from the Waddens Brook, which originates in Wednesfield.

The southern arm appears prominently close to Oldbury town centre, which gives it its name, but can be traced back to an industrial area at Titford, just west of the M5 motorway, between Whiteheath and Langley Green.

Leaving Tipton, it then zig-zags across the southern and eastern parts of Wednesbury, to meet the Willenhall or Wolverhampton arm at Bescot.

Skirting to the north of Castle Bromwich, it leaves Birmingham to the north-east at Park Hall Nature Reserve, passing Water Orton in Warwickshire.

It then crosses into Staffordshire, flowing through Middleton Lakes RSPB reserve in a wide valley between Drayton Bassett to the west and Dosthill to the east.

The river continues its generally northward route past Hopwas, Comberford and Elford until it arrives at the National Memorial Arboretum where it forms the boundary between this and the Croxall Lakes Nature Reserve.

[15] The river is susceptible to spectacular flooding at the village of Hopwas, between Tamworth and Lichfield, during periods of heavy autumnal rain.

At about the same time, a similar arrangement was constructed at Sheepwash Urban Park, utilising old brickworks excavations as a storm water basin to relieve flooding by the Oldbury Arm.

Nonetheless, in June 2007, after heavy rain, the river burst its banks in the Witton area of Birmingham (just downstream of Perry Barr)[17] and at Kingsbury Water Park.

[20] 1000 tonnes of gravel were removed from around the Chester Road Bridge at Castle Vale and deposited further downstream to improve the fish spawning habitat.