A series of prosperity attending it, its lord might assume its name, reside in it, and the particle ham would naturally follow.  This very probably happened under the Saxon Heptarchy, and the name was no other than Bromwycham.

SITUATION.

It lies near the centre of the kingdom, in the north-west extremity of the county of Warwick, in a kind of peninsula, the northern part of which is bounded by Handsworth, in the county of Stafford, and the southern by King’s-norton, in the county of Worcester; it is also in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and in the deanery of Arden.

Let us perambulate the parish from the bottom of Digbeth, thirty yards north of the bridge.  We will proceed south-west up the bed of the river, with Deritend, in the parish of Aston, on our left.  Before we come to the Floodgates, near Vaughton’s Hole, we pass by the Longmores, a small part of King’s-norton.  Crossing the river Rea, we enter the vestiges of a small rivulet, yet visible, though the stream hath been turned, perhaps, a thousand years, to supply the moat.  We now bear rather west, nearly in a straight line for three miles, to Shirland brook, with Edgbaston on the left.  At the top of the first meadow from the river Rea, we meet the little stream above-mentioned, in the pursuit of which, we cross the Bromsgrove road a little east of the first mile stone.  Leaving Banner’s marlpit to the left, we proceed up a narrow lane crossing the old Bromsgrove road, and up to the turnpike at the five ways in the road to Hales Owen.  Leaving this road also to the left we proceed down the lane towards Ladywood, cross the Icknield street, a stone’s cast east of the observatory, to the north extremity of Rotton Park.  We now meet with Shirland Brook, which leads us east, and across the Dudley road, at the seven mile stone, having Smethwick in the county of Stafford, on the left, down to Pigmill.  We now leave Handsworth on the left, following the stream through Hockley great pool; cross the Wolverhampton road, and the Ikenield-street at the same time down to Aston furnace, with that parish on the left.  At the bottom of Walmer-lane we leave the water, move over the fields, nearly in a line to the post by the Peacock upon Gosty-green.  We now cross the Lichfield road, down Duke-street, then the Coleshill road at the A B house.  From thence down the meadows, to Cooper’s mill; up the river to the foot of Deritend bridge; and then turn sharp to the right, keeping the course of a drain in the form of a sickle, through John a Dean’s hole, into Digbeth, from whence we set out.  In marching along Duke-street, we leave about seventy houses to the left, and up the river Rea, about four hundred more in Deritend, reputed part of Birmingham, though not in the parish.

This little journey, nearly of an oval form, is about seven miles.  The longest diameter from Shirland brook to Deritend bridge is about three, and the widest, from the bottom of Walmer Lane to the rivulet, near the mile-stone, upon the Bromsgrove road, more than two.