| This manor was first recorded in 1262, being so called presumably
to distinguish it from the earlier settlement to the east, Castle
Bromwich, which may have been the parent vill. BROMWIC(H) means 'broomy
pasture' but also indicates a temporary camp thereon. Herdsmen may
have founded what later became a permanent dwelling-site. In the case
of neither manor is it possible to state that a single family or a
group established it, or when it was done. If we assume that the first
settlement in Little Bromwich was in the vicinity of the Moat House
and Alum Rock Farm, we find it to have been a place of similar advantage
to Saltley, on dry broomy heath but with forest and meadows near.
The Ward End Hall site, almost as old, is similarly situated at the
northern edge of the drift, so is Treeford Hall, and Garrison Farm
sits on a gravelly promontory which the boundary zigzag defines.
When we plot the open fields of both manors, as shown on John Tomlinson's
fine maps of 1759-60 (Maps 33 and 34), we note that they are wholly
on drift, which is no accident. The sparser timber on lighter soil
would be cleared first, by communal action, and the land divided
into furlong strips a rod wide, usually running downhill. The forest
was then cleared piecemeal from its edges, giving gradual access
over many generations to the heavy, less workable, ill-drained,
but potentially more fertile marl. It is notable how few even in
the mid-C18th were the buildings in the southern parts of both manors.
Wet sites, yet with poor water supply, on cold and heavy soil, difficult
to reach even in the dryest weather, were all one could find on
the clay.
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