There is often a wealth of history to be unearthed from place-names. Localities often preserve the names of dead and gone personages, half-forgotten incidents, and matters of past history well worth recalling for their interest. Besides the pleasure to be derived from the right interpretation of place-names and old street names, great interest often centres around the social associations of old inns and taverns. Let us consider a few of the old-time inns and localities of Willenhall.

The site of the mediÆval Holy Well, which in the later fashion of the 18th century blossomed forth as a Spa, was situated between the church and the present Manor House. In the remoter age we may imagine it as the haunt of the lame, the halt, and the blind (possibly the church was dedicated to St. Giles, the patron of cripples, on this account), and in the more recent period as the resort of fashionable invalids and wealthy valetudinarians.

In the Private Act of Parliament, dated 6th August, 1844, for disposing of the Willenhall Endowment properties, a number of field-names occur in the schedule which are pregnant with local history. Welch End is a name which seems to mark the locality where resided the family of Welch, who founded the church dole; the Doctor’s Piece was perhaps part of the estate of the celebrated Dr. Wilkes; the Clothers and the Little Clothiers are names which are said to indicate certain lands once belonging to the Cloth-workers’ Company of the City of London; Somerford Bridge Piece and the Hither Bathing were presumably located near the brook; while the Poor’s Piece, the Constable’s Dole, and the Dole’s Butty (query: does the last-named, interpreted in the dialect of the district, signify “the companion piece to the Dole?”), are names which suggest the identity of charity lands.

There is mention of a High Causeway, which manifestly indicates the position of some old paved road; and the Butts, doubtless, named the field where in ancient times archery was practised by the men of Willenhall, as the men of Darlaston did at the Butcroft in their parish.

Reverting to the schedule, there are some names for which no explanation can be offered; as Ell Park, Berry Stile, the Stringes, and the Farther Stringes. Many of the properties named in the list are declared to be “uninclosed lands that lie dispersedly in the Common Fields there, intermixed with other lands.” How much, or rather, how little, common land is there in Willenhall to-day?

And yet the amount of “waste” land in and around Willenhall was once excessive, as the writings of George Borrow cannot fail to convey (Chap. XXVIII.). In Chap. XXII. we read of Canne Byrch, situated in “Willenhall Field,” lying in the highway towards Darlaston, where perhaps the village community of ancient times tilled their lands in common; and more directly of the “waste or common land” called Shepwell Green; a wide stretch of open land once apparently stretching away towards the wilderness and solitudes of that gipsy-land immortalised by George Borrow.

“Willenhall Green” is named by Dr. Plot, writing in 1686, as a place where yellow ochre was found a yard below the surface, and which after being beaten up was made into oval cakes to be sold at fourpence a dozen to glovers, who used it in combination with cakes of “blew clay,” found at Darlaston and Wednesbury, “for giving their wares an ash colour.”

The old highway between Walsall and Wolverhampton lay along Walsall Street, through Cross Street, and the Market Place; the new coach route, or the New Road, as it was called, was made in the early part of the nineteenth century.

New Invention is a place-name which originated not from any connection with the local industries, as one might be led to expect, but from nothing more serious than a nickname of derision. The tradition is that many years ago an inhabitant from the centre of the town was strolling out that way, when he was thus accosted by an acquaintance living in one of the few cottages which then comprised the neighbourhood, and who was standing on his own doorstep to enjoy the cool of the evening: “I say, Bill, hast seen my new invention?” “No, lad; what is it?” “That’s it!” said the self-satisfied householder, pointing up to a hawthorn bush which was pushed out of the top of his chimney. “That’s it! It’s stopped our o’d chimdy smokin’, I can tell thee!” And ever after that the locality which this worthy honoured with his ingenious presence was slyly dubbed by his amused neighbours the “New Invention,” by which name it afterwards became generally known.

Portobello, on the outskirts of Willenhall, is said to have borrowed its name from that second-hand Portobello near Leith, which was named after Admiral Vernon’s famous victory of 1739. At the Scottish suburb a bed of rich clay, discovered in 1765, led to the development of the place through the establishment of brick and tile works; a similar discovery of a thick bed of clay outside Willenhall, and its subsequent industrial development on parallel lines led to the copying of that patriotic name, more particularly because a neighbouring coal-pit was already rejoicing in the name of Bunker’s Hill, conferred upon it by local patriots after the American victory of 1775. The Willenhall wags, however, have given quite another derivation. A man once passing a solitary farmhouse in that locality, say they, called and inquired if the farmer had any beer on tap. The reply was, as the man pointed cellarwards, “No—only porter below!”

Little London seems to be a locality which attempts to shine by the reflected glory of the capital’s borrowed name, and is appropriately approached by a thoroughfare called Temple Bar; but which of these metropolitan names suggested the other, the oldest inhabitant fails to recollect.

Among the old inns and taverns of the town the chief were the Neptune Inn, Walsall Street; the Bull’s Head, Wolverhampton Street; the Hope and Anchor, Little London; the Bell Inn, Market Place; and the Waterglade Tavern, Waterglade. The Neptune, situated on the main road between Wolverhampton and Walsall, and almost opposite the church, was formerly a posting-house kept in the 18th and early part of the 19th century by Isaac Hartill, one of those typical hosts of the coaching period; active, genial, and obliging, a man of good conversational powers, and one who instantly made his guests feel at home, and was extremely popular with all the local gentry and regular travellers along the road. With the advent of the railway the character of the Neptune Inn gradually altered—the railway, by the way, was cut through the crescent, overlooking Bentley Hall, a property which had belonged to and had been the residence of the Hartill family since 1704, and part of which is now The Robin Hood Grounds, used for sports and recreations and other out-door assemblies.

It was from the balcony above the entry of the Neptune Inn, over which was then the public drawing-room, that the Right Hon. Charles P. Villiers first addressed the electors of the newly-enfranchised borough of Wolverhampton in 1835, and subsequently made many of his fervent Free Trade speeches; and in fact, from this place all public announcements were wont to be made. The room behind the balcony was formerly used as a Court Room, in which the magistrates administered justice; here too, the Willenhall Court Leet was held, and to this day Lord Barnard’s agents receive the tithes there.

The Neptune once served all the purposes of a lending inn as an acknowledged place of public rendezvous; and when the Stowheath farmers were accustomed to ride or drive in to attend church, its spacious stableyard was a scene of animation, even on Sundays.

The Bell Inn, in the Market Place, is perhaps the oldest in the market taverns, though the date 1660 painted upon its sign can scarcely refer to the projecting wing which bears it. The back portion of the house is unquestionably old; in fact, the family of Wakelam who kept the inn 25 years ago, were identified with this house and the Bull’s Head Inn for upwards of two centuries.

The Plough Inn, Stafford Street, is less old than the others, and of more doubtful interest. It has been completely altered within recent years; in the old days when prisoners consigned to Stafford Gaol had to walk, it was the place of the final drink before starting, and marked the limits of the town till Little London began.

The Bull’s head Inn, Wolverhampton Street, is supposed to be the alehouse referred to in Borrow’s romantic tale of Romany life, “Lavengro.”

The Waterglade Tavern marked the spot on the road between the two old-world villages of Willenhall and Bilston, where it dipped to the bed of the stream.

The Woolpack Inn, at Short Heath, is one of the oldest licensed houses in that locality.

The First and Last Inn, New Invention, was so dubbed because at one time it was the first licensed house when approaching from Wednesfield, and the last when going the other way out.

The sign rhymes of Willenhall belong to the hackneyed type. The Gate Inn, New Invention, has the well-known couplet:—

This Gate hangs well and hinders none:
Refresh and pay and travel on.

The Lame Dog Inn, at Short Heath, is not very original with:—

Step in, my friends, and stop a while,
To help a lame dog over the stile.

Enough has been said on the subject to arouse the interest of patriotic Willenhaleans. One reflection in conclusion—in the old days licensed houses were invariably kept by families of position and substance, and it is remarkable to discover the great number of professional and well-to-do men of the present day who were born in public-houses. It is so with regard to Wednesbury and Darlaston, and even more so with regard to Willenhall.

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