OWNERSHIP OF SALTLEY C12^th - 20^th

We may accept that Clodeshale lived at Saltley, making or more likely enlarging the moated site near Adderley Park. On it he erected a large house and outbuildings in sandstone and timber, which survived in local legend as 'Giant's Castle'. One may guess that this name was given long after the site had been abandoned, when its origins had been forgotten, and only the extensive foundations were still visible. In 1360 Clodeshale was granted a licence for an oratory and chapel at his house. Though even the foundations had gone before the advent of surveyors, the site is still shown as 'Great Moat Piece' on Tomlinson's map, covering about 4 acres (Map 33). Clodeshale's demesne probably occupied the southwest of Saltley, bounded by the Rea and lanes now called St. Saviour's and Cherrywood Roads.

Walter's son John retained his links with St. Martin's, though he was by residence a parishioner of Sts. Peter & Paul of Aston . His heirs held Saltley until 1428 when Robert Arden succeeded, he being the husband of Richard Clodeshale's daughter. At this time the Holtes of Duddeston held part of Saltley including the mill, but manorial rights passed to and remained with the Ardens, a powerful family of Park Hall in Water Orton. It was they who changed the name and venue of the ancient Hundred Court from Coleshill to Hemlingford, which was more convenient for them: thither went the representatives of Birmingham, Saltley, and Little Bromwich. The Ardens held Saltley until 1643, but were not necessarily or even probably in residence there. In that year, after initial division, the whole manor went to Anne, daughter of a later Robert Arden, and her husband, Sir Charles Adderley. So began an ownership that was to last 262 years.

The C17th Hall which survived in ruin until about 1960 may have been built by the first of the Adderleys. The old site of Giant's Castle and Great Moat Piece had been abandoned at a time unknown and a new one chosen 300 yards to the north. The original house within this second moat was probably not demolished until after the new Hall, a gabled three-storey farmhouse, had been erected alongside. The partly infilled moat is shown on the 1860 map, but the Hall is not on the central platform, which is unoccupied. There are many local examples of such rebuildings partly over infilled moats and subsequent demolitions of older houses within them. There is said to have been a chalybeate spring in the Hall cellars. The site of Saltley Hall and moat is enclosed by Ash, Hall, and St. Saviour's Roads: 'the former drive off Ash Road leads to the Sweeney & Blocksidge Works which stand on the exact site of the Hall. The home farm, if still standing (it went a century ago) would face St. Saviour's Church across Hall Road.

The Adderley home was Hams Hall, eight miles to the east, and it is unlikely that the manorial lord ever lived in Saltley Hall, though it might have been built for a son or a daughter. It was let to a farmer in the C18th and thereafter, and was little altered externally except for the installation of Regency windows on the ground-floor front and the bricking-up of some others. During the Civil War Sir Charles Adderley of Hams was a Royalist supporter like most of the local gentry, and was heavily fined for choosing the side that lost. Prince Rupert is said to have lodged at Saltley Hall during one of his rampages across the Midlands. Probably Garrison Farm was so called because troops of one side or the other - perhaps both at different times - were quartered there during the war. No battles are known to have taken place nearer than Birmingham and Curdworth Field.