182 HALES OWEN.

(Hales Owen, The Quinton, and St. Kenelm's), whereby great tithes, to the value of about £300 a year, were conveyed to the clergy, on condition of all Lord Lyttelton's estates being made tithe free. The amount returned to Lord Lyttelton, in compliance with that stipulation, is about £200 a year. Thus the net augmentation of the three benefices is about £100 a year. The proportion added to the vicarage of Hales Owen carries with it a liability for the repair of the chancel of the parish church. The augmentations of St. Kenelm's and the Quinton (the endowments of which are very small) procured from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners grants of income nearly equal in value to Lord Lyttelton's benefaction. The latest measures affecting these three benefices have been Orders in Council, signed in March,April, and May, 1866, by which the vicarage of Hales Owen and the perpetual curacies of St. Kenelm's and the Quinton have been constituted rectories, under the provisions of 28 Vic. 42, sec. 9. Thus there are no chapels of ease in the parish, but its six divisions - Hales Owen rectory, St. Kenelm's rectory, the Quinton rectory and the perpetual curacies of Oldbury, Langley, and Cradley, have churches of their own. It is intended to build a church for the contiguous parts of Rowley, Hales Owen, and the Quinton. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners will endow the church when it is consecrated and a district assigned. The total outlay will exceed £6,000, of which about £850 still remains to be contributed. The building was commenced in November last.

Hales was the original name of this place,"Owen" having been added to it subsequently, to distinguish it from Hales in Gloucestershire. Roger Montgomery - one of the Conqueror's principal "men-at-arms," and who was rewarded with immense territory in this and the adjoining counties - was the first Norman possessor of Hales. The abbey (Praemonstratensian Canons) was founded in the time of King John, and tbe abbot and convent became lords of the manor. The town was made a borough in Henry III's