Brewood in 1859

BREWOOD (ST. MARY), a parish, in the union of PENKRIDGE, E. division of the hundred of CUTTLESTONE, S. division of the county of STAFFORD, 7 miles (N. by W.) from Wolverhampton, and 10 (S. by W.) from Stafford; comprising by survey 11,900 acres, and containing, with the liberty of Coven and the township of Brewood, 3641 inhabitants, of whom 2991 are in the township. This is a place of great antiquity, and Stukeley, in his Itinerary, speaks of it as " a village on the Penk, which they say has been an old city; on plowing the fields they frequently find Roman coins and other antiquities; in that great old city King John kept his court." It is about a mile south of the Roman Watling-street, which forms the northern boundary of the parish for upwards of three miles; it consists of several ranges of houses, and is paved, and well supplied with water from springs.

The market, formerly held on Friday, has been discontinued, and the market-house pulled down; but a fair for live stock is held on the 19th of September. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire, and the Birmingham and Liverpool canals pass through the parish; and the Four Ashes' station on the line of the Grand Junction railway is about two miles distant. Here is a small manufactory of stock locks, firewood is within the jurisdiction of the court of requests held at Wolverhampton for the recovery of debts not exceeding 5.

The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £15 patron and appropriator, the Dean of Lichfield: the tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £670. The church is a spacious and handsome edifice, in the later English style, with a fine spire. A chapel of ease has been erected within the last few years at Coven, by Edward Monckton, Esq.; it is of pointed architecture, and has been fitted up for divine service by subscription. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans. 

The free grammar school is supposed to have been founded by Dr. Knightley, whose endowment, increased by subsequent benefactors, now produces about £412 per annum, and will shortly be still more augmented by a sale of mines. Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, who, with other distinguished persons, was educated here, appropriated, in the year 1800, two houses for the benefit of the school, and in 1827 it received a bequest of £1000, pursuant to the will of Richard Hurd, Esq.; the system of education is strictly classical, but there is an English free school in connexion with it, and national schools are supported by 
subscription.

A bank for savings has been established. The workhouse for the Penkridge union is situated in this parish. A small Benedictine nunnery, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, is first noticed in the time of Richard I.; at the Dissolution, its clear revenue was rated at £11.1.6. Chillington Hall, a noble mansion in the parish, is approached by a fine avenue of trees, nearly two miles long, in a direct line, and has a lake of about 100 acres; there are two Roman Catholic chapels on the estate, one at Birch, and the other at Black-Ladies. In the neighbourhood are two mineral springs, now disused.   

An 1859 Gazetteer description of the following places in Brewood is to be found on a supplementary page.

• Bishops Wood
• Coven

[Description(s) from The Topographical Dictionary of England (1859) by Samuel Lewis - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]