The castle, I have reason to think, was erected by Rokeby, in which all the lords resided till the extinction of the Clodshales.--It has been gone to ruin about three hundred years, and the solitary platform seems to mourn its loss.
WARD-END.
Three miles from Birmingham, in the same direction, is Wart-end, anciently Little Bromwich; a name derived from the plenty of broom, and is retained to this day by part of the precincts, Broomford (Bromford).
This manor was claimed by that favourite of the conqueror, Fitz-Ausculf, and granted by him to a second-hand favourite, who took its name.
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.