TUDOR AND STUART TIMES

On Speed's Map of Warwickshire (1610) we find 'Bermichams Aston'. There were 250 households in the Parish by the C16th. A large part of the population was in Deritend, where iron-working had created an industrial village. There were scythe-smiths in Tudor Aston. John Leland recorded in 1536 'I passed over Sharford Bridge of four arches of stone. There be fair meadows about (it)'. The bridge he used was very like the Vesey Bridge at Water Orton. Aston Manor's fields were still open in 1606, but the emparking for deer of more than a third of the manor about a dozen years later probably included all the surviving arable. (See Map 6). The Park bounds were Park Pale (fence) beside 'Shire Brook', Birchfield Road, High Street, Park Lane, Lichfield Road. The east end may have included the salient between Lichfield Road and Aston Hall Road: a ¾ mile drive flanked by chestnut trees (on the line of Queens Road) is shown on Tomlinson's map from the highway to the Hall, but by 1758 'New Road' (Church Lane) had been made, and the land east of it was let off in ten closes.

The building of Aston Hall by Sir Thomas Holte Bart., Sheriff of Warwickshire, on footings of iron slag which may have come from the Furnace (see below) began near but not on the highest point of the manor in 1618. The site was chosen for its attractive view of church and village in the valley below. After thirteen years building was sufficiently advanced for Sir Thomas to move in, leaving Duddeston manor house to his aged mother. The Hall was complete in 1635. The stable block had been added by 1656, when it was shown in Dugdale's prospect. Sir William was a better draughtsman than cartographer, and his maps in 'Antiquities' should be disregarded: he shows the Shire bound along the Bourn instead of Lozells Road. Later there were lodges at Park entrances, opposite the church, at the east end of Church Road ('Gate Inn' stood thereby), and on the track that became Trinity Road.

Aston Hall still stands, finely preserved, surprising and delighting the motorist who approaches the City on the Expressway. There are adequate guidebooks for this magnificent example of transitional architecture, described by Dugdale as 'a noble fabrick which for beauty and state much exceedeth any in these parts'. Three points only will be made here. The symmetry of the central block is not original: the doorway was formerly at the south end of the entrance hail, leading directly to the great staircase. The present entrance was subsequently crammed between the two central windows. The three-storey tower above the first floor is said by experts to be later than the main building period, but it is shown in the 1656 edition of Dugdale. The southern elevation was rebuilt after cannonade had reduced it to rubble in January 1644. Holte entertained Charles I during his march from Nottingham to Oxford at the start of the Civil War.

The looting and burning of Birmingham by Prince Rupert's dragoons (Easter Monday 1643) left a legacy of hatred towards the Royalist cause which was to be vented upon its chief local adherent, Holte. Expecting attack, the old baronet garrisoned the Hall with forty soldiers from Dudley Castle: but these could not hope to defend for long; a moatless thin-walled and large-windowed mansion built for show not for siege. After three days of sporadic assault at the year's end, and much pounding by erratic cannon, Holte was obliged to surrender his home to looting. Twelve defenders and sixty attackers had been killed.

When restoring the damage Sir Thomas left the splintered newel post of the staircase as a reminder of his sacrifices. He died in 1654 at the age of 83, providing in his will for the building and main-tenance of an almshouse for twelve old people. The Dutch-gabled building of 1665-6, on the site of Tinker's and Holman's houses, stood on Aston Hall Road until 1929. Westbrook House, a brick farmhouse, was built round an earlier structure beside the churchyard during the Stuart period, as were Aston Tavern and Lozells Farm. The wood of west Aston had clearly been much reduced by the demands of the Furnace for fuel. Soon after the Civil War Aston Parish was divided to ease the labours of its Overseers. Thenceforward Duddeston & Nechells had their own, the rest of the Parish being known as Aston Hide.

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