ANCIENT NAMES HEREABOUTS

Let us consider some of the old names of Moseley and its environs. We know already that they ley ending means 'clearing hamlet'. To the east and south were water-courses; the Rea was once ea, Old English for 'river', and Spark Brook was named after a family which lived near it in medieval times. Balsall was formerly Bordeshalle, meaning 'Bord's Heath', and it would seem to be linked with Bordesley across the shire bound. It would appear that the natural forest cover of the north-most part of Moseley Yield had been removed, perhaps by fire, leaving a 'blasted heath' in the C14th when the first name came into record; later, when the original meaning of "halle" or "hale" had been forgotten, the superfluous 'heath' was added.

These Anglo-Saxon names were not the oldest in use hereabout. Arden is Celtic for 'steep woodland', and the name was applied to a huge largely-forested area which stretched north from Avon to Tame and Rea. Alcester Road goes to a town whose modern name still recalls the Roman Castrum on the River Alne.

Local topography survives in names long after its transformation, in such names as Moor and Wake Greens, Longmore Street, Swanshurst, and Kings Heath. Moor or more indicates bog, green is unenclosed pasture, and hurst is wood. Norton became King's Norton after the Conquest, when William I confiscated the estates of the rebellious Earl of Mercia. Later tenants adopted the royal prefix to distinguish themselves from other Nortons in the county; one of the privileges which balanced the disadvantages of being a king's tenant was freedom from payment of market tolls.

Nortonians and doubtless Moseleians stoutly defended this right; they look to Birmingham for their income from sales of surplus produce, and refused to pay toll at its market. Kings Heath was that stony infertile part in the south of the Yield which adjoined the neighbouring manor of Yardley. Reddings Road is a reminder of riddings, where woodland has been cleared, But though Yew Tree, Ashfield, and Poplar Roads may commemorate trees, perhaps even Willows, Birchwood, and Coppice Roads, we can be sure that Forest Road was not made and named until five centuries after the primeval forest's disappearance.

Only one local name may refer to an historical event, that of Cannon Hill. There is a legend of a Civil War camp in the Park. So many armed bands from both sides blundered about this frontier zone between Royalist Worcestershire and Parliamentary Warwickshire that there is nothing unlikely in this.

What we call Church Road used to be Ladypool Lane, because it led down to a pond where now is the playground of Balsall Heath Park. Revenue from the sale of fish harvested from it was devoted to 'Our Lady', in this case the Chapel of St. Mary. Chantry Road may or may not be a reminder of a small religious house in the Chantry Glen, but more probably of a fancy Victorian house with a fancy medieval name - like the so-called 'Priory' at Edgbaston Road corner, the 'Manor House' in the Village, and the 'Grange' at Wake Green! Park Hill was a 'foot-road' that descended to the Rea meadows alongside the wall of Moseley Hall Park. Woodbridge Road (formerly Blayney Street) meant what it said until 1898 : for fifty years the railway cutting had been spanned by a timber bridge. The Alcester Turnpike was carried over the lines by Queensbridge, built in the year of Victoria's succession.

Moseley families are recalled in Cotton Lane, Russell Road, Anderton Park Road, and Holders Lane. Roads named after mansions were Greenhill, Highfield, Grove, Kingswood, Oakfield, and Willows. Salisbury Road was named after the then Prime Minister in 1896. Louise Lorne was Queen Victoria's daughter who married a Marquis. Few people today could find Mount Street : it is the alley that runs up the hill between Trafalgar and Alcester Roads!

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