“calling their lands after their own names.”  Dr. Willmore, in his “History of Walsall” (p. 30) adopts the now discarded derivation of the name of Willenhall.  He says “After the defeat a great feast of rejoicing was held by the Saxons at Winehala, the Hall of Victory, and the event was long celebrated by the national poets.”

To identify the “Hall of Victory” with Willenhall the Walsall historian proceeds:—“At Lowhill may still be seen the remains of a large tumulus, while in Wrottesley Park are the vestiges of a large encampment, believed by some authorities to be of Danish construction, and to have been occupied by them about the time of these engagements.”

Yet in the next paragraph it is admitted that the Danes never gained a permanent footing in this locality, and that there is scarce a name of purely Danish origin in the neighbourhood.

“Willenhalch,” then, may be accepted as signifying in Anglo-Saxon “the meadowland of Willan,” Willan (not Willen) being a personal name, and halch being a form of healh, signifying “enclosed land on the banks of a stream,” as, for instance, on the Willenhall Brook.

Any ancient place-name terminating in “halch” would, in the course of time, terminate in “hall,” a termination now commonly construed as “hall,” or “mansion.”  There is nothing inherently improbable in Willenhall having been a temporary royal residence.  King John in much later times had his hunting lodge at Brewood.  Bushbury, originally Bishopsbury, was so called because one of the early Mercian bishops is said to have made this place his episcopal residence.  Attention has been called to the fact that in this vicinity a number of place-names end in “hall,” as Willenhall, Tettenhall, Walsall, Pelsall, and Rushall.  The inference drawn is that each of these places marks the settlement of some pioneer Anglican chieftain, or, as Dr. Oliver puts it, the mansion and estate of some Saxon thane.

II.—The Battle of Wednesfield.

Although it cannot be admitted that the Battle of Wednesfield, or the great national victory gained on that occasion, provided Willenhall with its name, the event itself may certainly be regarded as the chief historical episode which has occurred in this immediate vicinity.  This was “far back in the olden time” when, says the local poetess—

The Danes lay camped on Woden’s field.

Dr. Willmore, in his “History of Walsall” (p. 30), quotes an authority to the effect that the battle fought at Wednesfield in the year 911 “had the important consequence of freeing England from the attacks of these formidable invaders.”

This engagement was one of the many which took place between the Saxon and the Dane for dynastic supremacy.  Even the mighty prowess of Alfred the Great had failed to give the quietus to Danish pretensions, and his son, Edward the Elder, was engaged in a life-long struggle with the Danes, in the course of which the Princess Ethelfleda, who was Edward’s sister, and Great Alfred’s daughter, erected castles at Bridgnorth, Stafford, Warwick, Tamworth, and Wednesbury.  Edward the Elder had to combat Welsh invasions as well as Danish aggressiveness, and hence the erection of these castles in Mercia, where most of the minor fighting in that disturbed period occurred.  For nine years Ethelfleda fought side by side with her husband Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, in the pitiless struggle; and upon his death, continuing as her brother’s viceroy, she proved herself one of the ablest women warriors this country has ever known.

In 910 (the Saxon Chronicle informs us) a battle of more than ordinary moment was fought at Tettenhall.  The Danes were returning from a raid, laden with rich spoils, when they were overtaken at this spot by the Angles, on the 5th day of August, and there signally defeated.  It was to avenge this disaster that the Danes swooped down the following summer from the north, and met their antagonists exactly on the same day of the year, and almost on the same ground.  The latter fact may possibly

indicate that there was some strategic importance in the locality.  Wednesfield being almost within hail of Tettenhall; though the better informed writers, including Mr. James P. Jones, the historian of Tettenhall, have been led to consider the two battles as one engagement.

As a matter of fact, the exact site of the Tettenhall engagement is not known, yet one historian has not hesitated to represent the nature of the conflict as being “so terrible that it could not be described by the most exquisite pen.”  It seems to have been an engagement of that old-time ferocity which is so exultantly proclaimed in the ancient war song:—

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
   Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
   We widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
   We glutted with our foemen:
The heroes and the cravens,
   The spearmen and the bowmen.

According to Fabius Ethelwerd it was a national and a most memorable fight which occurred at Wednesfield, where three Danish chieftains fell in the conflict; in support of which statement it is mentioned that the Lows, or monumental burial grounds, of the mighty dead are to be found at Wednesfield and Wrottesley.  But Wrottesley is nearer to Tettenhall than to Wednesfield.  The number of tumuli which once lay scattered over the entire range of this district may perhaps be accountable for the variations in the mediæval chronicles.  As we shall see, while it is well agreed that the country lying between Tettenhall and Wombourn on the one hand, and Wednesfield and Willenhall on the other, was the scene of a great struggle, the details of the conflict vary very materially at the hands of different chroniclers.  A valuable collection of old records and historical documents relating to this locality was made by John Huntbach, of Featherstone and Seawall, near Wolverhampton, nephew and pupil to that noted antiquary, Sir William Dugdale.  The Huntbach MSS. related more directly to Seisdon; and it was this collection which inspired similar efforts on the part of the Willenhall Antiquary, Dr. Richard Wilkes, and ultimately led to the

writing of the Rev. Stebbing Shaw’s “History of Staffordshire” (1798–1801).

Speaking of the treatment of the battles of Tettenhall and Wednesfield by the old monkish historians, Huntbach says:—“There is very great reason to confirm their testimony who say the battle was here fought; for there are many tumuli or lows there, that shew some great engagement hereabouts, viz., the North Lowe, the South Lowe, Little Lowe, Horslowe, and Thrombelow.

“The first four being yet visible, the North Lowe, near in lands to croft-lodge, the South Lowe near Mr. Hope’s windmill, the great and little lowe in the heath grounds; but Horslowe is not discernible by reason of the coal-works that have been here, only it giveth name to the Horselowe Field, since called Horsehull Field, now Horseley Field.

“And there are not only these, but several others, partly in the way betwixt this place and Tottenhall, as at Low Hill, near Seawall, a very large one, and at Hampton Town; and another which giveth name to a field called Ablow Field, upon which stands a bush now called Isley Cross.”  Ablow Field covered 40 acres of unenclosed ground near Graiseley Brook, and the tumulus once occupied the site now covered by St. Paul’s Church.

Dr. Plot believes the ancient remains in Wrottesley Park to be “those of the old Tettenhall of the Danes, who, having resided there for some time, built themselves this city, or place of