The old castle has been gone about a century; the works are nearly complete, cover about nine acres, the most capacious in this neighbourhood, those of Weoley-castle excepted.  The central area is now an orchard, and the water, which guarded the castle, guards the fruit.  This is surrounded with three mounds, and three trenches, one of them fifty yards over, which, having lost its master, guards the fish.

The place afterwards passed through several families, till the reign of Henry the Seventh.  One of them bearing the name of Ward, changed the name to Ward-end.

In 1512, it was the property of John Bond, who, fond of his little hamlet, inclosed a park of thirty acres, stocked it with deer; and, in 1517, erected a chapel for the conveniency of his tenants, being two miles from the parish church of Afton.  The skeleton of this chapel, in the form of a cross, the fashion of the times, is yet standing on the outward mound:  its floor is the only religious one I have seen laid with horse-dung; the pulpit is converted into a manger—­it formerly furnished husks for the man, but now corn for the horse.  Like the first christian church, it has experienced a double use, a church and a stable; but with this difference, that in Bethlehem, was a stable advanced into a church; this, on the contrary, is reduced into a stable.

The manor, by a female, passed through the Kinardsleys, and is now possessed by the Brand-woods; but the hall, erected in 1710, and its environs, are the property of Abraham Spooner, Esq.

CASTLE BROMWICH.

Simply Bromwich, because the soil is productive of broom.

My subject often leads me back to the conquest, an enterprize, wild without parallel:  we are astonished at the undertaking, because William was certainly a man of sense, and a politician.  Harold, his competitor, was a prince much superior in power, a consummate general, and beloved by his people.  The odds were so much against the invader, that out of one hundred such imprudent attempts, ninety-nine would miscarry:  all the excuse in his favour is, it succeeded.  Many causes concurred in this success, such as his own ambition, aided by his valour; the desperate fortune of his followers, very few of whom were men of property, for to the appearance of gentlemen, they added the realities of want; a situation to which any change is thought preferable; but, above all, chance.  A man may dispute for religion, he may contend for liberty, he may run for his life, but he will fight for property.

By the contest between William and Harold, the unhappy English lost all they had to lose; and though this all centered in the Normans, they did not acquire sufficient to content them.

History does not inform us who was then the proprietor of Castle Bromwich, but that it belonged to the Mercian Earls scarcely admits a doubt; as Edwin owned some adjoining manors, he probably owned this.  Fitz-Ausculf was his fortunate successor, who procured many lordships in the neighhood of Birmingham; Castle Bromwich was one.  He granted it to an inferior Norman, in military tenure; who, agreeable to the fashion of those times, took the surname of Bromwich.