Early Settlement.

The valley floors were unsuitable for settlement, though elsewhere (Weoley, Hamstead, Perry, Erdington) early strongholds were sited thereon for defence by water. In D. and N. only millers perforce lived and worked at riverside. Only in this century has the taming of watercourses made building possible along their bricked banks.

As the whole ridge was well-drained, and only lightly wooded at worst, settlement and communication upon it were not restricted. Fields could be readily cleared and ploughed, though the land was more suitable for pasture than for crops. The moated manor house of D. stood on a level site off Vauxhall Road (Spooner Street - Hindlow Close), with meadows sloping gently to the river below. Its demesne was probably bounded by Vauxhall and Saltley Roads.

The first detailed map, Tomlinson's of 1758, shows enclosure to be then com-plete in D. and N. except for a ten-acre common, Nechells Green, and two much smaller ones at Upper and Lower Gorsty Green. All else is a pattern of small quadrilateral closes bordered by hedges : neither from their shape nor their Georgian names is it possible to deduce that certain areas were once in strip cultivation as open fields. The absence of revealing names indeed suggests that enclosure had taken place long before.

A tradition of depopulation in D. may be based on the number of taxpayers shown thereat in two consecutive returns: whereas in 1327 there were more such in D. than in Aston Manor (13 against 9), only five years on there were but two in D. while Aston had 11. This suggests either an outbreak of a fatal disease or displacement by the manorial lord of his subsistence-farming tenants to make way for more profitable sheep : but we cannot be sure that either happened.

The Holtes prospered, by whatever means, and their home grew in extent and appointment. In Stuart times it was said to possess 13 bedrooms, gallery, chapel, gatehouse, and extensive domestic outbuildings : the great hall and principal rooms were richly hung and furnished.

The manor house of N. has been so long demolished that no trace or record of it has survived. 'Nechalls Park' is shown on Beighton's map of 1725, and the site of N. Park Farm (Stanley Road Rec. Grd.) may be suggested as the manor house site. There was no village anywhere on the ridge in the C18th, and it cannot be claimed that there were ever more than a few scattered farmhouses.