NEEDLE TRADE.
In what year was the needle trade introduced into Redditch, by whom, and where from?
MARINE STORE DEALERS.
What was the origin of applying the term "marine store dealers" to shopkeepers buying and selling old metal, &c.?
GROVES.
When was the practice of planting groves, or avenues of trees, as approaches to family mansions, commenced, and when and why abandoned? Nothing can speak more of grandeur or of ancestral dignity than these solemn avenues of trees—for instance, those of Spetchley, Cotheridge, &c. In Rome, no great house was formerly built without an avenue of trees, and Plato taught his scholars to love the groves of Academus almost as well as his philosophy.
CROMWELL PILLORIED.
On the key-stone of the arch of the Guildhall entrance-door is the figure of a man's head, having the expression of pain, and with his ears nailed back. Is there any ground for supposing that this was intended to represent Oliver Cromwell in the pillory, while the two Charleses stand in regal state on each side? I have heard the fag-end of an old song, of which the following is the burden:
"The Worcester people being hurt full sore, sir,
Nail'd Cromwell's head by the ears above the Town-hall door, sir.