“Township”
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Produced by John Hemingway/Jennifer Foster, 2006
Historic Environment Team, Directorate of the Urban Environment, Dudley MBC, 3 St James’s Road, Dudley, West Midlands, DY1 1HZ
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Sedgley Township
Sedgley Township lay in the Parish of Sedgley, within the county of Stafford. The name
Sedgley is Anglo-Saxon. One derivation is that the estate name means the - woodland
estate occupied by a man called Secges. Another is that Secges is the common name for
Sedge. Like most Old English names this tended not to mean that sedges did not grow
anywhere else, but the occupants cultivated or used this material for sale out of the estate.
That this was the case can be seen in a later medieval document (I.P.M. 1291) that states
one of the traditional services that the villagers must perform is the cutting of rushes. This
was worth £1.6.7. to the lord of the manor, no mean sum at the time.
Sedgley is a very small township considering it is in the centre of a very large parish. The
bounds of the township are the plough lands of Gornal in the south, the low-lying lands
of Gospel End in the west, the south bounds of Sedgley Wood in the north and the west
bounds of Ettingshall Wood in the northeast, with the lands of Turls Hill in the east and
an open field of Sedgley called Sedgley Field in the southeast. The geology of the area is
Gornal Sandstone.
The ridge way which runs straight through the township is the oldest man-made feature in
Sedgley - a prehistoric track way that ran the length of the country. So far there is little
evidence of the early people who used this important route, though numerous flint
artefacts have been picked up in the fields in the north-west of the area.
There is no evidence of any settlement prior to the Anglo-Saxon period. This is not
surprising as people tended not to live on through-routes in the past unless they were
large communities or the settlement was fortified. Despite this a Roman coin was found
in Dormaston School Playing Field which is perhaps the first sign of a nearby RomanoBritish settlement.
By 1086 the manor was one of the most important and valuable properties in the area and
was taken as a royal vill by King William Ist. It seems likely that at this date there was
some kind of settlement in the vicinity of the present centre. A priest is recorded in the
Domesday Book of 1086 which means a church was there. This was no doubt on the
same site as the present church dedicated to All Saints. It is probable that the king's local
representative lived there as churches at that early dated belonged to the landowner and
was normally in the grounds of the hall. It is not a coincidence that the Court House, the
site of the Manor's court of jurisdiction, is in the same plot as the church. This signifies
that the area has been the centre of control for the best part of a thousand years.
The general plan of Sedgley shows a rectangular area, containing the church and court
house. The way in which it seems to have `dragged' the alignment of the ridge way south
west of its conjectured earlier position and the way in which all the roads meet in the
centre, at the Bull Ring, suggest that it was not a planned unit but grew up at an existing
crossroads. The rectangle may have had defences in its earliest form. The north western
limit was Townsend Hall (This name is not likely to be a personal one as town's end, in
medieval times, meant exactly that - the end of a settlement.)
Subsequent settlement along Cotwallend Lane and south of it is probably late medieval or
post-medieval. It shows signs of being a gradual encroachment of the roadside fields.
Secondary tracks and roads can be seen behind the house plots in Vicar Street, Millbank
and Castle Street. (These names are most certainly later terms for what would have been
formerly unnamed back lanes).
The Bull Ring was a small market area which also served as a place of entertainment.
Bull Baiting was still a popular activity as late as the mid 19th century with dogs
(Staffordshire Bull Terriers), bred for the purpose. The meat of a bull killed in this
`entertainment' was supposed to be remarkably sweet and commanded a high price with
the local butchers. A butcher’s shop, paddock and slaughter house was sited at the corner
of Mill Bank and the Bull Ring in the late 18th early 19th century.
Priory Lane refers to Dudley Priory's land holdings in Sedgley. The boundaries of the
medieval priory lands went as far as the lane and marker stones still exist in its walls
showing the edge of this property. This is just one aspect of the traditional nature of
Sedgley. Another one is the way in which Roman Catholicism had a strong survival in
the area. Apart from the documentary evidence of their persecution this can be seen in the
building of a Roman Catholic Church in the fields south of the village six years before
the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed in 1829.
The village of Sedgley was surrounded by open arable fields to the south, east and north
and pasture/meadow land on the slope to the east. The patterns of this medieval
agricultural system can still be seen on Fowler's Map of 1844. Probably due to the nature
of the soil the people of Sedgley began the secondary occupation of mining very early.
An inquisition post mortem of 1273 records four coal pits in the manor and an inquisition
in 1291 mentions iron mines. Other materials like limestone, sandstone and charcoal,
although not recorded were also quarried and used. As early as 1273 there were `sixteen
small shops' in Sedgley, these were probably metal working shops and may have been
situated within the main settlement area.
By the 16th century there is more evidence of the people’s occupation: coal mining,
charcoal burning, metal working (chiefly scythe, lock and nail making) and lime burning.
The 1844 maps still shows lime quarries and kilns on the outskirts of the Sedgley
settlement and earlier stone pits where the building material was quarried. This industrial
activity accelerated in the 18th century, during the genesis of the industrial revolution and
in the 19th century was the reason why settlement in Sedgley `took off'.
Most of the buildings in Sedgley are of the 18th century and later, even the church which
was rebuilt in 1826-9. Late 18th century Listed Buildings include The Court House in
Gospel End Road, The Swan Inn and a terrace of houses in Bilston Street. The industrial
aspect of the community survives in a nail warehouse, situated in Brick Street which is
dated to the early 19th century. The 1844 map still shows the medieval and post-medieval
framework but the later 19th century expansion is starting to show along the Bilston Road
and what would become High Holborn on the building of the Roman Catholic Church in
1823. The Beacon Tower was built in 1846 by Lord Wrottesley, who was an amateur
astronomer.
Communication improved with the Turnpike Trusts Dudley Street- High Street in 1761,
Gospel End and Bilston Roads in 1793 and Tipton Road in 1841. With the rising
population and the increase in industrialisation development began to spread across the
fields and along the roads to Wolverhampton and Dudley. The core of Sedgley village
still survives today; High Street, Bull Ring and the roads that made up the traditional
settlement are still there. Many of the earlier buildings have been replaced by
contemporary structures, just as they had been in earlier times. Despite Sedgley being
amidst a huge conurbation it still retains its village aspects, its palimpsest represents not
only its sense of history but its survival as a living community.
John Hemingway, 6th February 2005.
Notes: The base material for the composition of the 1750 map is the parish map of 1826,
with other material gathered from local histories and documentary research.
Select Sources
Hackwood, F.W. (1898) Sedgley Researches, Dudley.
Grazebrook, H.S. (1888) The Barons of Dudley, William Salt Collection.
Sedgley (1977) Victoria County History of Staffordshire, London.
Stenton, Mawer & Houghton, (1927) The Place-Names of Staffordshire, Oxford.
Tithe Map:1845
Thorn, Frank & Caroline (Ed) (1982) Domesday Book: Staffordshire, Chichester.
Underhill, A.E. ( 1941) The Ancient Manor of Sedgley.