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I.
THE number of small freeholders in Wednesbury, and Darlaston – and Darlaston, so far as the scope of this article is concerned, may be considered a part of Wednesbury – is a rather remarkable feature in our local traits of character. This in fact is a peculiarity of character which has descended to us from our Saxon forefathers. With these ancient progenitors of ours, land seems to have been the accompaniment of full freedom ; and the freeman was the freeholder. Consequently these ancestors of ours, during the earlier period immediately succeeding their first arrival, did not crowd together in cities, but lived apart in farmer-commonwealths, each of which was jealous of its isolation and independence, and to maintain which each agricultural settlement was girt in by its own "mark" or belt of waste-land. For instance, there would be a ring of common-land like the Delves – of which that now remaining is but a small portion of the circumscribing zone which once hemmed in our sturdy farmering forefathers – which no man might take for his own ; a spot where criminals met their doom. So that the Delves-common may once have been the "Tower Hill" of Wednesbury, and the scene of many a public execution. The inviolability of this ring of common-land was such that not only were inhabitants forbidden to appropriate one square inch of it, but even the stranger might not approach Wednesbury without blowing his horn as he came along, or his secrecy might stamp him as a foe, and any man might lawfully slay him. In these primitive agricultural days, the family bond was the mainstay of law and order ; and "ing" is a terminal which denotes "sons of" or "descendants," and shows how families grouped themselves together. In this way, Falling’s Heath signifies that the descendants of the chieftain "Fall" dwelt on the Heath there. Such habits and customs as these, brought from the opposite shores of the North Sea soon gave way, however, to the exigencies of newer circumstances, to the irresistible force of fresh surroundings. Outside foes, strong in numbers, and as diverse in modes of attack as in origin of race, soon brought into existence the protecting town of defence.
There can be no doubt that Wednesbury, as a town, attained its highest distinction in the early Saxon period. It was then, comparatively speaking, of much greater importance than it is now, or can ever hope to be in the future. It is probable, too, that under earlier British sway the place had also had some independent existence. Several considerations would point to this conclusion ; first, its natural position, midway between the heights of Barr and Sedgley, commanding as it does all the intervening open country, would have highly recommended it to the Ancient Briton as a desirable site for a village. It was a place which could have been easily fortified by a stockade and a ditch, after the manner of the time.
When the Romans acquired possession of this country some of the principal British settlements became Roman Camps or Stations. We have an evidence of some such Roman occupation of Wednesbury in the name of "Portway Road." "Portway" is a name common to all the Roman military highways. The name "Portway Road" testifies to the existence of a Roman Station here, in succession to the fortified hill settlement of the barbarous Briton. Then, at the Saxon irruption in the fifth century, the newcomers would naturally appropriate all the settlements of the vanquished Britons, and all the stations of the departed Romans ; and that this was the case with our town is extremely probable from the very name the conquerors gave it. The Saxons called it "Wodensbeorg," the affix "beorg" being equivalent to "a place of strength." Beyond this, we know that these Saxon "beorgs," "burghs," or "burgs" - now modernised with us, into "bury" - were towns "of strength," defended by walls or castles. And as, later on, Wednesbury hill was deemed important enough for the erection of a Saxon Castle, it may in the first instance (as suggested) have possessed protecting walls of some kind ; in which case the Castle would have been simply supplementary to the existing fortifications. So far, we have only considered its fortifications. Now as to its importance. These Saxon "burghs" were towns of royal creation, and we know from the Doomsday Book that previous to the Norman Conquest, Wednesbury belonged to the Saxon Monarchs. Referring again to its name, we are impressed by the fact that the Saxons when they first arrived, and were in their original state of paganism, called the settlement after the name of the common god of the whole German race, Woden – the war god, the guardian of ways and boundaries, to whom his worshippers attributed the invention of letters, and whom every tribe held to be the first ancestor of its king. This was the god that gave its name to "Wodens-bury" and for whose worship every "Woden’s-day" was specially set apart. No wonder that Elihu Burrit said that, in print, the name of our town looked like the middle of the week !
Wednesbury was in Mercia, the last formed, but by no means the least important of the seven kingdoms of the Heptarchy. Mercia means "the March" or the "boundary land," and was so called because it was on the boundary of Wales ; thus the town of Wednesbury was situated in the frontier land of the Heptarchy, the deabatable land where the conquering Saxon, or to speak more correctly, the conquering Angle – for the "marshes" were conquered by Anglian chiefs who were for some time subject to the Kings of Northumbria - had to contest its ownership with the defeted, but long unsubjugated, Briton. Around this classic locality took place the final struggle between the invading Teuton and the patriotic Celt ; between the dominant invaders and the retreating natives - and these conquerors, with a characteristic assumption of superior right (and to them "the right of might" was pre-eminently in advance of that of original possession, or of all other claims) actually styled their beaten foes "Welch" or "foreigners".*(*In the name Walsall or Waleshal, the Wale is generally understood as Weald or Wood - why not interpreted as in Wales and in Cornwales (Cornwall), viz., as "a foreigner" or "a Briton" ?) Such close neighbours, when resignedly settled down beyond the mountains, were found to be extremely convenient in a civil broil. Hence we are not surprised to hear that in a great battle fought at Wodensbeorg (just before Mercia was erected into a separate Kingdom by Penda, in 625) that the Britons or Welch fought as allies and mercenaries with one side of the contestant Teutons. It was at this Battle of Wodens-beorg in 591 that Ceawlin, King of Wessex, and second Bretwalda, a dignity he attained by unsparing bloodshed, was defeated and slain by an army of rebel subjects aided by the Britons from over the marshes. Soon after its foundation, the Kingdom of Mercia took a leading position, and Offa, one of its Kings, was one of the most celebrated princes of that time. It was he who built Offa's Dyke, a great rampart between the Dee and the Wye, to serve as a greater safeguard to "the Mercia" against the incursions of the Welch. It was Offa of Mercia who provided the great Charlemagne with a "guide, philosopher, and friend" in the person of the renowned and learned Alcuin ; and in return, Charlemagne, on his side made Offa many costly presents, which generally consisted of the spoils which that Emperor had taken from the Huns. So that some of the barbaric wealth of Pannonia may thus have found its way into an ancient, royal, and fortified Wednesbury. This is by no means a far-fetched idea, inasmuch as Offa's Kingdom of Mercia contained so few towns of strength and importance ; a glance at any ordinary map illustrative of this early period will show only some half score, including Tamaweorthige (Tamworth), Staefford, Weadesbyrig (Wednesbury), &c., &c.
Some doubt has been thrown upon the identity of this "Wodensbeorg" with Wednesbury, and the site of the battle of A.D. 591 has often been fixed at Wimbleton. But no doubt can be entertained as to the fact that the battle of "Wothesbeorg" was fought here in the year 715 A.D., when Ina, King of Wessex, marched from the south, invaded Mercia, and found Ceolrid posted in the strong position offered by the fortified eminence of Wednesbury. And still later on, when such internecine struggles had ceased, when the Heptarchy had passed away, and when the whole of the Saxon England had been consolidated into one united kingdom, the glory of Wednesbury had by no means departed from it. In 901 Edward the Elder succeeded his father, Alfred the Great. The greater part of Edward's reign was occupied in a struggle with the Danes who had settled in great numbers in the east of England. These Danes found a leader, during the earlier part of the reign, in one Ethelwold, a cousin of the King's, and a claimant to the throne. Even after Ethelwold had been slain in battle, it was not till the Danes were twice severely defeated, once at Wednesfield and again at Tettenhall, that anything like peace was restored to the Kingdom. Then it was that Wednesbury Castle was erected. To understand why a Castle was erected here at this juncture it will be necessary to speak of other royal and important personages. Edward the Elder had found an extremely useful ally in the Earl of Mercia, who had married his, the King's sister Ethelfleda. The career of the princess Ethelfleda was a remarkable one. She seemed to have inherited many of the great characteristics of her august father, Alfred the Great. In both warfare and statecraft she had all the attributes of a man. When her husband died, she assumed the control of his Earldom and became to her royal brother a closer companion, and a more intimate councillor than ever. When, by her aid and counsel, the Danes were at last thoroughly subdued, and the country was restored to peace, she showed the depth of her genius be erecting a series of castles throughout the centrally situated Earldom of Mercia, thus effecting a concentration of power calculated to overawe the Welch upon the west, and the Danes of the Danelagh on the east. It was thus that a castle sprang into existence upon Wednesbury Hill, at the same time that similar castles were built at Bridgenorth, Warwick, and Tamworth. It has been said that remains of this ancient fabric on the hill have been identified in the masonry of the foundations of the present church.
When in 1016 the Danes under Canute acquired the supremacy, it is not improbable that this energetic monarch at times took up his residence at Wednesbury Castle. Its central position would commend it to a ruler who had to maintain a watchful vigilance upon the four earldoms he had erected - in his wisdom of duly recognising provincial independence. These four earldoms were Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex. It had been, in the main, the aid of Eadric of Mercia which eventually gave the crown to Canute. Lying between the three strongholds of Stafford, Tamworth, and Wednesbury was a dense forest in which this monarch delighted to hunt, and which consequently acquired his name. At first it was called Canute's Wood ; this name afterwards got corrupted to Cank-wood, and is now known to us as Cannock Chase. It may be all the more interesting to bear in mind that in the eleventh century, in which Canute lived, the hunter could sally forth from Wednesbury, and in those woods have found the wolf, the bear, and the wild boar ; at that period the stag, the bustard, and the bittern had not begun to recede before the clearances of the farmer ; while even the wild ox was still to be found around London.
However, there is one remaining relic of the Castle's ancient defences to which the attention of the reader should be particularly drawn. When coming out of Church through the south porch, immediately on the right-hand, the observant eye, in ranging over as extensive a view (to the west) as can be found anywhere in the county, overlooks the tops of the adjacent houses. These houses are built close up to the boundary wall of the churchyard, and the observer approaching close to the wall, and peering over, will note a steep perpendicular descent into the back-yards of these houses. Why is this, when the natural slope of the hill is so gradual and so long, extending as it does uninterruptedly to the bed of the stream at Wednesbury Bridge ? Surely this deep and sudden fall on the north boundary is not natural ? No : it is artificial. It is the remains of the ancient graaf, perhaps dug out by the hand of man to defend the fortress of the summit of the hill two thousand years ago. To sum up, Wednesbury was probably a fortified British settlement, with its hill surrounded by a stockade and a ditch ; then, a minor Roman Station, it passed into the hands of the Saxons, and by them was mae a royal "burgh" and the wooden walls were probably replaced by a stone rampart. It continued a royal town till the Norman Conquest, in the interim having had a castle added to its fortifications by the daughter of Alfred the Great, and "prime minister" of Edward the Elder. Never again, in all human probability, will Wednesbury attain to the importance it reached in those olden times. But if our Saxon greatness has passed away, there is yet one striking Saxon characteristic which remains with us to this day. The Wednesbury man, in common with all his Black Country neighbours - modern representativesof the ancient Mercians - still inclines to the custom of right good feasting. As in bygone times, the Wednesbury Saxon of to-day is not indifferent to the quality of his food, but before all things he puts the quantity of it. In fact there is a great deal of the Anglo-Saxon in the modern "Wedgbury mon." Although the Bards are extinct, he is yet fond of music ; and if he cannot now indulge in the chase, he still is keen in the pursuit of sport.
With the Norman Conquest a new order of things set in, and Wednesbury having been the property of the ancient Saxon Kings became a royal demesne, or as the Doomsday Book puts it : - "The King retains Wadnesberrie with its appurtenances." The extent of "Wadnesberrie" at that time is stated to have been "three hides" (about 350 acres), arable land "nine carucates" (perhaps 1000 acres), one acre of meadow, and a wood two miles in length and one in breadth. But at that time Bloxwich was part of the Manor ; the present area of Wednesbury comprises about 2000 acres, but the boundary between it and the parish of Darlaston is of a very artificial nature. A survival of the manorial system is still left us in the quaint customs of the Court Leet every year, when the solemn formality of electing a constable, headboroughs, overseers of fields and hedges, a victual-taster, and an ale-taster is duly honoured. This Court Baron is always notified to "the Resiants and Tenants of the said Manor" by the Bailiff ; but the only useful function now pertaining to it is the enfranchisement of copyhold property. This naturally gets less year by year, as the land ceases to be copyhold and becomes freehold. Previous to 1851 (the Public Health Act then being adopted, and the Wednesbury Board of Health established) the town was always described as "a Constablewick, governed by a Constable, chosen at the Manorial Court, held annually in October." [Wodensbeorg, Wodensburh, or Wednesbury was on the southern boundary of Mercia, and therefore very near to its turbulent neighbour, Wessex. The boundary lines of Mercia may be closely approximated by tracing those of the diocese of Lichfield.]
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