| Except in the Tame valley, almost the whole of Handsworth is covered
by glacial drift deposits 150 feet thick. The topsoil is porous and
acidic, unsuitable for agriculture, and its natural cover was light
woodland and heath. The drift capping was 'a great storehouse of water',
so that it provided many springs and brooks, and people could settle
almost anywhere on a well-drained site. But the land would not support
a large farming population, being suitable for stock-rearing at best.
It is not surprising therefore that much of Handsworth remained unsettled
heathland until C18th mansions and C19th suburbs related to industrial
development elsewhere spread across it.
Undrained water-meadows in the wide flood-plain of the Tame made
crossing difficult, but the narrow gorge at Hamstead and gravel
deposits at Birchfield and Oldford provided fording points from
earliest times. The marls and sandstones that underlay the drift
contained layers of coal, later to be exploited at Sandwell and
Hamstead. That there were fair resources of timber, most probably
on the Tameside slopes between the alluvial marshes and the stony
heath, is indicated by the name of the manor -worde, -worth, mean
wood, and the first settlement was probably in a woodland clearing.
A tiny copse, last remnant of the wood and still so called, survived
until a few years ago beside Butlers Road.
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