1552 AD - Thomas Hancocks & Edward Lyttelton

Standing at the corner of Gillott Road and Rotton Park Road, with the Time Machine dial set for '417 years ago', I pressed the GO button and found myself at the meeting of two sunken paths. Nearby was a half-timbered house in poor repair. It was a late autumnal morning.

Looking from this high point across Rotton Park, of which I could see the full extent because it was almost bare of trees and the hedges which divided it into pieces were newly planted, I saw many cattle and sheep grazing on the new grass. Two horsemen were approaching, one from the east who wore a chain of office round his neck, and the other from the south. He arrived first, dismounted, and bowed as the rider from the direction of Birmingham approached.

Hancocks: Good day, sir, I am Thomas Hancocks of Solihull, late Keeper of Rotton Park. Let me held you down.

Lyttelton: Thank you, Master Hancocks, I am Edward Lyttelton of Frankley, the Crown Steward, administering the manor of Birmingham for the Queen. When I was told that the Keeper did not live in the Park, I was surprised - but now, seeing the state of the Lodge, I understand.

Hancocks: There is neither place nor work for a Keeper here now sir. But I have come in obedience to your summons. How may I serve you ?

Lyttelton: You need no telling that since Edward de Birmingham forfeited his estates 17 years ago, they have been held, first by the Steward of King Henry VIII, then by the traitor John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. Since his execution I have held this manor for Queen Mary : it is to be sold, and soon Her Majesty's Surveyor- General, Clement Throckmorton, will arrive to calculate its value and decide upon a price. I need to know about every part of the manor, so that I can answer his questions. Tell me, then, about this Park, Master Hancocks.

Hancocks: Yes, Sir. Rotton Park has been kept as part of the demesne and use for hunting by the lords of Birmingham for two hundred years or more. It stretches between Grindstone Lane - that's the road to Halesowen - and the Dudley road. The east bound is the lane that borders Lady Wood, and on the west side is the shire boundary, Shireland Brook.

Lyttelton: How large, then, is the Park?

Hancocks: I would say it is 900 acres, sir. But you should note that a quarter of it, though owned by the Birmingham lords, is in the manor and parish of Edgbaston, which lies south of us here.

Lyttelton: You said that the Park was kept for hunting, but I see that it is cut into pieces by fences and hedges.

Hancocks: True, sir, but you'll observe that the hedges are little grown as yet. In fact it is only a few years since the Park was first let out to tenants. By that time the boundary fences had been largely broken down, and poachers had taken all the deer. Nearly all the great trees had been felled by the lord's men. The Heath, north of the Dudley road, is common land and poor grazing; cattle and sheep were forever straying, and being driven, onto the better grass of the Park. It would have taken an army of Keepers to deny them. So it was both wise and profitable to enclose the Park and let it out in pieces to tenants.

Lyttelton: There is a fish pool hereabout, I understand?

Hancocks: Why, sir, you passed it on your way - down there it lies, at the meeting of three brooks.

Lyttelton: That bog? It is full of mud and reeds.

Hancocks: True, sir, there are very few fish in the Pool. Poachers again, and long neglected.

Lyttelton: So, there's no game, no fish, and no timber. Only the land is of value.

Hancocks: That is correct sir, and there's no difficulty in letting the pieces. I know that several men would like to build farmhouses here, if they were allowed.

Lyttelton: That must wait until the manor is sold, and they can ask the new owner.

Hancocks: Who is that likely to be, sir, do you know ? His concern will be for the rents and tolls this manor will bring him, rather than for the rights and duties of a manorial lord. The old days and ways are gone, Master Hancocks, like your office here !

Hancocks: There'll never be another Keeper in Rotton Park. I wonder how long the name of the Park will last ?

Lyttelton: You spoke of Lady Wood, but I saw no wood on my way here.

Hancocks: You wouldn't sir, it's all gone, every tree. Warstone Wood, a little to the north, is the same. Those forges and furnaces in Birmingham have swallowed up all the timber, except the trimmed trunks, and they've gone to the ship-builders of London and Bristol. If it weren't for coal from the Black Hills, there'd be no more smiths and cutlers and nailers in the town for lack of fuel. Look, you can see a packhorse train going along the Dudley road now. Every bar or iron and every pound of coal has to come on horse-back, for want of a river or a good road that could bear a wagon.

Lyttelton: The heath to the north, how large is it ?

Hancocks: It must be a mile square, sir. As I said, it's not good for much - too stony, and lacks water. But it's all the poorer folk have for pasturing their animals. Once there were commons much nearer the town, all round the open fields. But the fields were all parcelled out into closes for pasture long ago, and gradually the commons have been enclosed too, by the richer tenants, with the lord's permission or without it, and now the Heath is all that is left.

Lyttelton: Do any folk live on it ? I saw on my way here, that there are few houses outside the Borough tollbars.

Hancocks: Well, sir, if they live in the Foreign, which is all of the manor outside the bars, they count as foreigners and have to pay tolls at the markets and fairs like folk from other manors. So it pays everybody to live in the Borough. But you were asking about the Heath. There are a few squatters' cottages at Winson Green, and there's the old Lodge. The Heath was worth hunting at one time, and one of the de Birmingham's had a lodge built on it. I believe it's as tumble-down as this.

Lyttelton: I must look over this lodge while I am here, to see whether it might be restored and made into a farmhouse. But, Master Hancocks, there is a contradiction in what you have said. Why should anyone wish to live here, in the Foreign, when as you say, he would lose his rights as a townsman?

Hancocks: Well sir, there are two things some of the rich graziers of Birmingham have in mind. First, this Park was always demesne land, as I told you. So it doesn't count as Foreign. But in any case, the men who build hereabout need not live here, they can stay in their town mansions and put a tenant on their holdings - that's the second point, and even if the new owner should sell the Park or decide it is not demesne land any more, that will still preserve their rights.

Lyttelton: I see that you know a great deal which will help me in my task, Master Hancocks. Will you ride back to the town and dine with me, so that I may learn more?

Hancocks: I shall be honoured, sir.

Soon afterwards they were riding down towards Roach Pool. Across the bare landscape I could just see the tall thin spire of St. Martin's Church, two miles away, through the smoke of a hundred forge chimneys. Farther south, the flag of St. George fluttered above the tower of Edgbaston Church, which still stands today : but how strange that our district should still be called Rotton Park four and a half centuries after it had ceased to be a park!