Following the large – and welcome – interest in Goblin’s Pit/Wood/Coppy Wodd/Coppice Woods in Green Lane, Walsall Wood, I thought I’d trawl the mapping record to see what I could find. This section of the 1:50,000 scale pre 1884 first edition is where the name was first legitimised for me.
This 1:50,000 digital issue of the 1884 first edition is great to study, but very inaccurate in places. The naming record here is excellent. Notice ‘Goblins Pit Farm’.
I went trawling for other usage, but could find none other than that highlighted in these two posts. Interestingly, on all large scale (and subsequent small scale) mapping, the wood is unnamed, even on modern Ordnance survey vector media. However, the 1884 1:2,500 plot does show something interesting, highlighted by Andy Dennis’s wonderful contribution in the comments yesterday. There were, indeed, other dwellings near the wood.
I can find no record of a pit, mine or excavation, and revisiting Brian Rollins work, ‘Coal Mining in Walsall Wood, Brownhills and Aldridge’, he actually says the following in the introduction:
For instance, there was no ancient coal mine at Goblins Pit Farm or Goblins Pit Wood in Green Lane, Walsall Wood, the coal measures here are overlain by hundreds of feet of Etruria Marls. No doubt there were surface excavations but only in the marls and probably to spread on the fields before the days of fertilisers to help regenerate the soil. These depressions exist in many fields and are called ‘Borrow Pits’.
Which just goes to show my memory isn’t quite what is was…
1884 1:2,500 scale draft of the Bullings Heath/Goblin Pit area. Note the additional buildings, not extant today.
I overlaid the map segment on Google Earth to show where the cottages would be today. If anyone wants a copy of the whole overlay, drop me a line and I’ll post it up.
Where the cottages were, to the south of those remaining today, there now seems to be scrub. Wonder if there are any remnants, and why they were lost?
So we’re none the wiser, really, but we’ve learned a bit more about the Bullings Heath area… and goblins. You clearly can’t have enough of the little fellas.