An interesting mail reaches me from David Evans. I’ve been thinking about this one quite a bit since I received it last week. It really does contain some interesting talking points, so I thought I’d share it rather than sitting on it like a bit of a lemon… Cheers to David. Can any readers add to this?
1:2500 scale Ordnance Survey map of northern Shire Oak in 1902. The Fold is circled in red.. Click for a larger version.
HI Bob
David Oakley has kindly given some fascinating information about Walsall Wood’s lost farms in his comments on some articles..so I have been looking through some of the maps you have very kindly posted..and I hope that readers may be able to locate these exactly, and that they may be able to add to this list.
The first that David mentioned is Poppleton’s farm in Sunnyside. The 1902 map may show this named as Vigo farm,by field 415, now, sadly, part of a huge landfill site. I remember Sunnyside as being a little collection of houses and a row of houses off an L shaped track, near fields 391, 419 & 418. The double fronted house was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Creswell who lived there. I wonder when the Vigo farm disappeared under the bulldozer and digger?
Craddock’s farm in Castle Road? I wonder if this was the building by field 387, which , I think, had a double underground air-raid shelter by it? I wonder when this ceased to be a farm?
Fewtrells farm, on Salters Road, near Streets Corner. There was a double fronted house quite close to the present bus layby, roughly where the Streets Corner Garden flats are now. Your map, 1955 may show this. I am not sure which one this was. Wolverson Road postwar houses may be built on the farm’s fields. Wolverson Road was the first Road to be started of the Castlefort estate, most were finished in the 1950s. The 1945 RAF map, also on Google Earth, show the first work being started here, in winter 1945.
Your recent 1902 map (in the Fold article) may show another contender, along Lindon Road, near the bend, near field 96… once a farm?
My dear old friend in Walsall Wood..yes, another cup of tea… has mentioned the farm in Walsall Road, near the Coach and Horses pub, late 1920s, early 1930s. Down a long drive. Bought milk. She took a jug and it was filled. The farm is shown by field marked 362 on 1902 Walsall Wood map… I wonder who owned this farm and when it was demolished?
Highfield farm, near the Horse and Jockey pub , was recently demolished. I hope there are photos of this farm , too.
Walsall Wood High Street had plenty of stores selling local provisions produced, no doubt, by many of the nearby farms David talks about. Picture from ‘Memories of Old Walsall Wood’ by Bill Mayo & John Sale.
I was surprised to learn from her that there used to be six butchers in the High Street, Walsall Wood and this excludes Bates at Streets Corner! The names of the butchers Cherry (beef) and Felton (pork) were the shops in the row opposite the Medical Centre… (Trevor’s barbershop was a bakers!) The beasts were slaughtered in the slaughterhouse up the yard through the archway.
I hope that your readers will be able to add to these details. Thanks to David Oakley’s kind offering, a very good start has been made to compiling an enduring record of this part of Walsall Wood’s history.
With kind regards and best wishes
David
