An History of Birmingham Part 31

The moat, like others on an eminence, has but one trench, fed by the land springs; is filled up in the front of the hall, as there is not much need of water protection. The house, which gives an idea of former gentility, seems the first erected on the spot; is irregular, agreeable to the taste of the times, and must have been built many centuries. All the ancient furniture fled with its owners, except an hatchment in the hall, with sixteen coats of arms, specifying the families into which they married.

KING'S-HURST.

Two furlongs east of Sheldon-hall, and one mile south of Castle Bromwich, is _Kings-hurst_; which, though now a dwelling in tenancy, was once the capital of a large track of land, consisting of its own manor, Coleshill, and Sheldon; the demesne of the crown, under the Saxon kings, from whom we trace the name.

The Conqueror, or his son William, granted it; but whether for money, service, caprice, or favour, is uncertain; for he who wears a crown acts as whimsically as he who does not.

Mountfort came over with William, as a knight, and an officer of rank; but, perhaps, did not immediately receive the grant, for the king would act again much like other people, _give away their property, before he would give away his own_.

If this unfortunate family were not the first grantees, they were lords, and probably residents of King's-hurst, long before their possession of Coleshill, in 1332, and by a younger branch, long after the unhappy attainder of Sir Simon, in 1497.

Sir William Mountfort, in 1390, augmented the buildings, erected a chapel, and inclosed the manor. His grandson, Sir Edmund, in 1447, paled in some of the land, and dignified it with the fashionable name of _park_.

This prevailing humour of imparking was unknown to the Saxons, it crept in with the Norman: some of the first we meet with are those of Nottingham, Wedgnock, and Woodstock--Nottingham, by William Peveral, illegitimate son of the Conqueror; Wedgnock, by Newburg, the first Norman Earl of Warwick; and Woodstock, by Henry the First. So that the Duke of Marlborough perhaps may congratulate himself with possessing the oldest park in use.

The modern park is worth attention; some are delightful in the extreme: they are the beauties of creation, terrestrial paradises; they are just what they ought to be, nature cautiously a.s.sisted by invisible art. We envy the little being who presides over one--but why mould we envy him?

the pleasure consists in _seeing_, and one man may _see_ as well as another: nay, the stranger holds a privilege beyond him; for the proprietor, by often seeing, sees away the beauties, while he who looks but seldom, sees with full effect. Besides, one is liable to be fretted by the mischievous hand of injury, which the stranger seldom sees; he looks for excellence, the owner for defect, and they both find.

These proud inclosures, guarded by the growth within, first appeared under the dimension of one or two hundred acres; but fashion, emulation, and the park, grew up together, till the last swelled into one or two thousand.

If religions rise from the lowest ranks, the fashions generally descend from the higher, who are at once blamed, and imitated by their inferiors.

The highest orders of men lead up a fashion, the next cla.s.s tread upon their heels, the third quickly follow, then the fourth, fifth, &c.

immediately figure after them. But as a man who had an inclination for a park, could not always spare a thousand acres, he must submit to less, for a park must be had: thus Bond, of Ward-end, set up with thirty; some with one half, till the very word became a burlesque upon the idea. The design was a display of lawns, hills, water, clumps, &c. as if ordered by the voice of nature; and furnished with herds of deer. But some of our modern parks contain none of these beauties, nor scarcely land enough to support a rabbit.

I am possessed of one of these jokes of a park, something less than an acre:--he that has none, might think it a _good_ joke, and wish it his own; he that has more would despise it: that it never was larger, appears from its being surrounded by Sutton Coldfield; and that it has retained the name for ages, appears from the old timber upon it.

The manor of King's-hurst was disposed of by the Mountforts, about two hundred years ago, to the Digbys, where it remains.

COLESHILL.

One mile farther east is _Coleshill-hall_, vested in the crown before, and after the conquest; purchased, perhaps, of William Rufus, by Geoffrey de Clinton, ancestor to the present Duke of Newcastle. In 1352, an heiress of the house of Clinton, gave it, with herself, to Sir John de Mountfort, of the same family with Simon, the great Earl of Leicester, who fell, in 1265, at Evesham, in that remarkable contest with Henry the Third.

With them it continued till 1497, when Sir Simon Mountfort, charged, but perhaps unjustly, with a.s.sisting Perkin Warbeck with 30_l_. was brought to trial at Guildhall, condemned as a traitor, executed at Tyburn, his large fortune confiscated, and his family ruined. Some of his descendants I well know in Birmingham; and _they_ are well known to poverty, and the vice.

In the reign of Henry the Seventh, it was almost dangerous, particularly for a rich man, even to _think_ against a crafty and avaricious monarch.--What is singular, the man who accused Sir Simon at the bar, succeeded him in his estate.

Simon Digby procured a grant of the place, in whose line it still continues. The hall is inhabited, but has been left about thirty years by the family; was probably erected by the Mountforts, is extensive, and its antique aspect without, gives a venerable pleasure to the beholder, like the half admitted light diffused within. Every spot of the park is delightful, except that in which the hall stands: our ancestors built in the vallies, for the sake of water; their successors on the hills, for the sake of air.

From this uncouth swamp sprung the philosopher, the statesman, and tradition says, the gunpowder-plot.

DUDDESTON.

Four furlongs north-east of Birmingham, is _Duddeston_ (Dud's-town) from Dud, the Saxon proprietor, Lord of Dudley, who probably had a seat here; once a considerable village, but long reduced to the manor-house, till Birmingham, swelling beyond its bounds, in 1764, verged upon this lordship; and we now, in 1783, behold about eighty houses, under the names of Duke-street, Prospect-row, and Woodc.o.c.k-lane.

It afterwards descended to the Paga.n.a.lls, the Sumeris, then to the Bottetourts, and was, in 1323, enjoyed by Joan Bottetourt, lady of Weoley castle, a daughter of the house of Sumeri.

Sir Thomas de Erdington held it of this lady, by a chief-rent, which was a pair of gilt spurs, or six-pence, at the option of the tenant.

Erdington sold it, in 1327, to Thomas de Maidenhache, by whose daughter, Sibell, it came in marriage to Adam de Grymforwe; whose posterity, in 1363, conveyed it for 26_l_. 13s. 4d. now worth 20,000_l_. to John atte Holt; and his successors made it their residence, till the erection of Aston-hall, in the reign of James I.

It is now converted into beautiful gardens, as a public resort of pleasure, and dignified with the London name of Vauxhall. The demolished fish-ponds, and the old foundations, which repel the spade, declare its former grandeur.

In 1782 it quitted, by one of the most unaccountable alignments that ever resulted from human weakness, the ancient name of Holte, familiar during four hundred and nineteen years, for that of Legge.

Could the ghost of Sir Lister re-visit his departed property, one might ask, What reception might you meet with, Sir Lister, in 1770, among your venerable ancestors in the shades, for barring, unprovoked, an infant heiress of 7000_l_. a year, and giving it, unsolicited, to a stranger?

Perhaps you experience repeated buffetings; a st.u.r.dy figure, with iron aspect, would be apt to accost you--"I with nervous arm, and many a bended back, drew 40_l_. from the Birmingham forge, with which, in 1330, I purchased the park and manor of Nechels, now worth four hundred times that sum. I planted that family which you have plucked up by the roots: in the sweat of my brow, I laid a foundation for greatness; many of my successors built on that foundation--but you, by starving your brother, Sir Charles, into compliance, wantonly cut off the entail, and gave away the estate, after pa.s.sing through seventeen descents, merely to shew you had a power to give it. We concluded here, that a son of his daughter, the last hope of the family, would change his own name to preserve ours, and not the estate change its possessor."--"I," another would be apt to say, "with frugal hand, and lucrative employments under the crown, added, in 1363, the manor of Duddeston; and, in 1367, that of Alton. But for what purpose did I add them? To display the folly of a successor."--A dejected spectre would seem to step forward, whose face carried the wrinkles of eighty-four, and the shadow of tear; "I, in 1611, brought the t.i.tle of baronet among us, first tarnished by you; which, if your own imbecility could not procure issue to support, you ought to have supported it by purchase. I also, in 1620, erected the mansion at Afton, then, and even now, the most superb in that neighbourhood, fit to grace the leading t.i.tle of n.o.bility; but you forbad my successors to enter. I joined, in 1647, to our vast fortune, the manor of Erdington.--Thus the fabric we have been rearing for ages, you overthrew in one fatal moment."--The last angry spectre would appear in the bloom of life. "I left you an estate which you did not deserve: you had no more right to leave it from your successor, than I to leave it from you: one man may ruin the family of another, but he seldom ruins his own. We blame him who wrongs his neighbour, but what does he deserve who wrongs himself?--You have done both, for by cutting off the succession, your name will be lost. The ungenerous attorney, instead of making your absurd will, ought to have apprized you of our sentiments, which exactly coincide with those of the world, or how could the tale affect a stranger? Why did not some generous friend guide your crazy vessel, and save a sinking family? Degenerate son, he who destroys the peace of another, should forfeit his own--we leave you to remorse, may she quickly _find, and weep over you_."

SALTLEY.

A mile east of Duddeston is _Saltley-hall_, which, with an extensive track of ground, was, in the Saxon times, the freehold of a person whom we should now call Allen; the same who was Lord of Birmingham. But at the conquest, when justice was laid asleep, and property possessed by him who could seize it, this manor, with many others, fell into the hands of William Fitz-Ausculf, Baron of Dudley-castle, who granted it in knight's-service to Henry de Rokeby.

A daughter of Rokeby carried it by marriage to Sir John Goband, whose descendants, in 1332, sold it to Walter de Clodshale; an heiress of Clodshale, in 1426, brought it into the ancient family of Arden, and a daughter of this house, to that of Adderley, where it now rests.

The castle, I have reason to think, was erected by Rokeby, in which all the lords resided till the extinction of the Clodshales.--It has been gone to ruin about three hundred years, and the solitary platform seems to mourn its loss.

WARD-END.

Three miles from Birmingham, in the same direction, is _Wart-end_, anciently _Little Bromwich_; a name derived from the plenty of broom, and is retained to this day by part of the precincts, _Broomford_ (Bromford).

This manor was claimed by that favourite of the conqueror, Fitz-Ausculf, and granted by him to a second-hand favourite, who took its name.

The old castle has been gone about a century; the works are nearly complete, cover about nine acres, the most capacious in this neighbourhood, those of Weoley-castle excepted. The central area is now an orchard, and the water, which guarded the castle, guards the fruit.

This is surrounded with three mounds, and three trenches, one of them fifty yards over, which, having lost its master, guards the fish.

The place afterwards pa.s.sed through several families, till the reign of Henry the Seventh. One of them bearing the name of _Ward_, changed the name to _Ward-end_.

In 1512, it was the property of John Bond, who, fond of his little hamlet, inclosed a park of thirty acres, stocked it with deer; and, in 1517, erected a chapel for the conveniency of his tenants, being two miles from the parish church of Afton. The skeleton of this chapel, in the form of a cross, the fashion of the times, is yet standing on the outward mound: its floor is the only religious one I have seen laid with horse-dung; the pulpit is converted into a manger--it formerly furnished husks for the man, but now corn for the horse. Like the first christian church, it has experienced a double use, a church and a stable; but with this difference, _that_ in Bethlehem, was a stable advanced into a church; this, on the contrary, is reduced into a stable.

The manor, by a female, pa.s.sed through the Kinardsleys, and is now possessed by the Brand-woods; but the hall, erected in 1710, and its environs, are the property of Abraham Spooner, Esq.

CASTLE BROMWICH.

Simply _Bromwich_, because the soil is productive of broom.

My subject often leads me back to the conquest, an enterprize, wild without parallel: we are astonished at the undertaking, because William was certainly a man of sense, and a politician. Harold, his compet.i.tor, was a prince much superior in power, a consummate general, and beloved by his people. The odds were so much against the invader, that out of one hundred such imprudent attempts, ninety-nine would miscarry: all the excuse in his favour is, _it succeeded_. Many causes concurred in this success, such as his own ambition, aided by his valour; the desperate fortune of his followers, very few of whom were men of property, for to the appearance of gentlemen, they added the realities of want; a situation to which any change is thought preferable; but, above all, _chance_. A man may dispute for religion, he may contend for liberty, he may run for his life, but he will _fight_ for property.