24 BELLBROUGHTON.

ton" have long been a standing toast. For ages the parish has been likewise noted for shoemakers, masons, and excellent bricks, to which have been more recently added scythes, hay knives, reaping hooks, spades, shovels, horse-nails, and hoes for the American trade. Messrs. Waldron and Sons and Mr. Isaac Nash are the principal manufacturers. A peep over the fields shows wheat, barley, oats, beans, peas, swedes, mangolds, and common turnips. There are few parishes where the land is better managed. Not much fruit is grown, but that little is of superior quality. Earl Dudley is lord of the manor; and Charles Noel, Esq., of Bell Hall, the principal landowner.

In Saxon days this parish had two divisions - Bellem and Brotune. Thevenot, a thane, held the former, and the famous Lady Godiva the latter; but at the Conquest, Wm. Fitz-Anculf and Urso Believed the old proprietors of their responsibilities and their broad acres, and the subsequent possessors were Somery, Chandos, Shrewsbury, Sir R. Greves, John Ward (grandson to a Lord Dudley and Ward), Perrott, Noel, Pakington, Barneby, Talbot, and Tristram. Lady . Godiva, it seems, whose husband had been a spoliator of the possessions of Worcester Priory, restored to the monks, among other manors, those of Bellbroughton and Fairfield, together with three cloaks or palls, two cauldrons, two coverings for benches, two candlesticks, and a library, on condition that she held the said lands for life, and on making a small annual payment. Then came the Norman chieftains, and did as they liked with thanes and their ladies, bishops, priors, and monks. Feckenham great forest extended here, and supplied the Droitwich salt-woris with fuel before the introduction of coal, for which wood 100 mitts of salt were returned. There were five manors in the parish. Bell End is a hamlet, as also is Farfield or Fairfield, where a chapel-of-ease has been erected at a cost of £1,600. Bell Hall, the modern mansion of C. Noel, Esq., has the remains of an ancient chapel attached; and at Fairfield Court, the moat of