Northfield was the fee-simple of Alwold (Allwood) but, at the conquest, Fitz-Ausculf seized it, with a multitude of other manors:  it does not appear that he granted it in knight’s-service to the injured Allwood, but kept it for his private use, Paganall married his heiress, and Sumeri married Paganall’s, who, in the beginning of the 13th century, erected the castle.  In 1322, the line of Sumeri expired.

Bottetourt, one of the needy squires, who, like Sancho Panza, attended William his master, in his mad, but fortunate enterprize, procured lands which enabled him to live in England, which was preferable to starving in Normandy.  His descendant became, in right of his wife, coheir of the house of Sumeri, vested in Weoley-castle.  He had, in 1307, sprung into peerage, and was one of our powerful barons, till 1385, when the male line dropt.  The vast estate of Bottetourt, was then divided among females; Thomas Barkley, married the eldest, and this ancient barony was, in 1761, revived in his descendant, Norborne Barkley, the present Lord Bottetourt; Sir Hugh Burnel married another, and Sir John St. Leger a third.

Weoley-castle was, for many years, the undivided estate of the three families; but Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley, having married a daughter of Barkley, became possessed of that castle, which was erected by Sumeri, their common ancestor, about nine generations before.

In 1551, he sold it to William Jervoise, of London, mercer, whose descendant, Jervoise Clark Jervoise, Esq; now enjoys it.

Fond of ranging, I have travelled a circuit round Birmingham, without being many miles from it.  I wish to penetrate farther from the center, but my subject forbids. Having therefore finished my discourse, I shall, like my friends, the pulpitarians, many of whom, and of several denominations, are characters I revere, apply what has been said.

We learn, that the land I have gone over, with the land I have not, changed its owners at the conquest:  this shuts the door of inquiry into pedigree, the old families chiefly became extinct, and few of the present can be traced higher.—­Destruction then overspread the kingdom.

The seniors of every age exclaim against the growing corruption of the times:  my father, and perhaps every father, dwelt on the propriety of his conduct in younger life, and placed it in counter-view with that of the following generation.  However, while I knew him, it was much like other people’s—­But I could tell him, that he gave us the bright side of his character; that he was, probably, a piece of human nature, as well as his son; that nature varies but little, and that the age of William the Conqueror was the most rascally in the British annals.  One age may be marked for the golden, another for the iron, but this for plunder.