| In 1226 Bordesley was still held in demesne by the lords of Dudley,
tenants-in-chief of the Aston manors. Later in the C13th a court leet
was held there for all the vills owned by the Somerys. (Duddeston,
a tithing of Aston Parish, owed suit to the manorial court of Birmingham
of which manor it was a part). In 1291, six years after Roger de Somery
had enclosed Bordesley's waste, there were 61 acres of demesne, 16
customary tenants held 6½ yard-lands (about 200 acres) four
freeholders each had a house and 15 acres, and 78 others without houses
held land newly brought into cultivation. These last were in effect
allotment holders, who probably lived in Birmingham and paid rent
for their plots across the Rea. Even thus early that fragmentation
of Bordesley that is so marked a feature of the 1833 Schedule had
begun.
Nearly four-fifths of Bordesley was still waste, wood, heath, and
meadow. Bordesley's 8 taxpayers contrasted with Birmingham's 75,
which included some Deritenders. Eleven years later the total arable
was only 180 acres, less than the sum of the 1291 holdings: clearly
there was a great deal of pasture, for which clay-land is more suitable.
In the demesne as on the open fields, Bordesley had a three-course
system of agriculture. The fields' location is very provisionally
shown on Map 14. They are here called for convenience and without
proof Callowfield, Broom, and Birch Fields, using known Georgian
croft names.
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It is notable that the area enclosed by Stratford Road, Sandy Lane,
Coventry Road, Golden Hillock and Anderton Roads, had only peripheral
farmhouses in 1760, which probably perpetuated the medieval settlement
about the demesne and open fields. Local population growth may well
have been reflected in the planting of several assarts in the largely
forested waste. One such was Haybarn near the Cole, which had a hundred
acres of land, mostly water-meadows. Timber and charcoal, meat, hides,
and produce for Birmingham market, were the Bordesleians' cash crops.
As parishioners of Aston they and the Deritenders had to travel
between three and five difficult miles to the church of Sts. Peter
& Paul. In 1381 the Pope granted their joint petition for a
chapelry, and a small building was erected in High Street near the
Rea. The chapel of St. John survived for 350 years: its steep gable
and pyramid-roofed bell tower appear on many prospect drawings.
A gild was formed for its upkeep and the payment of two priests,
one of whom served as schoolmaster.
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