Romsley & Hunnington History Society -

Meeting Report - March 2015

Dr. Chris Upton was ill and unable to give his talk on 'Peaky Blinders'. Instead our President, Julian Hunt, gave a talk on 'John Corbett and the making of Droitwich Spa'.

Most people think of Droitwich as the little town you pass through on the way to Worcester. However, Julian admitted that it is his latest obsession and the subject of many hours of research. He discovered that the Romans realised that there were brine pits underground and a settlement was made in the area. Salt was a very valuable commodity and the brine was extracted from the ground, put into large saltpans, boiled and the salt collected and sold. It was transported via the salt ways to the River Severn at Worcester, where it was loaded onto boats and transported to all parts of the country. There was even a salt way which ran through Romsley.

There is evidence from Domesday records that the King owned the salt rights and the purchase of the saltpans brought in a large income. By 1215 the income was £100 and a charter was granted to Droitwich. By 1265 the area was deteriorating and twelve houses were pulled down. The working area was extended and the houses rebuilt, all for £40.

By 1554 Droitwich had become so important that it had two Members of Parliament. In 1714 a turnpike road was built and the tolls used to repair the roads. Many wealthy business men became interested in the town and the potential to develop it as a Spa. In 1832, during a cholera outbreak, they discovered that brine baths had healing properties. John Corbett became MP for the town in 1874 and to encourage visitors he built more baths and hotels, such as the Raven, for their comfort. Transport was improved with the building of a canal and railway and Droitwich thrived.

There was however a downside to all the extraction of brine. There was a lot of subsidence with dips in the roads and houses leaning at strange angles. John Corbett died in 1901 but they were still developing the town until the 1930s. The Brine Baths are now closed and flats have been built on the site. Droitwich is still changing and developing and it is well worth a visit if only to look for evidence of the past glories. Thank you, Julian for a most interesting talk.

The next meeting of the History Society will be on Tuesday 28th April at 7.30 p.m. in the Church Hall when Dr. Michael Hall will be giving a progress report on 'What the Court Rolls Tell Us'. The summer outing will be on Thursday 2nd July to the Carpet Museum, Kidderminster at 10.30 a.m. The annual dinner will be held at The Golf Club, Blakedown on Friday 10th July.

Pat Evans

Meeting Report - April 2015

About 40 members attended the meeting of the Romsley and Hunnington History Society on Tuesday 28th April when Dr. Michael Hall gave a talk on What the Court Rolls Tell Us.

Romsley is fortunate in having a set of Court Rolls from about 1279-1643. They record property transactions and the everyday misdemeanours of the villagers. These have become a rich source of local history. For some time a small group of members have been indexing them. So far they have filled in 3,250 cards recording people, places, property transactions and fines. Dr. Hall has been sorting through all this information and gave a fascinating talk, illustrated with wonderful graphics, on life in Romsley in the 15th century.

The Courts met on a regular basis and imposed fines ranging from 2d to 20 shillings (or £1.00). The villagers were fined for not clearing out their ditches (2d), damaging the highway, stealing wood to make a sledge (2d), and over burdening the common land with their animals. Woe betide you if, like John Rede in 1400, you allowed your ducks to trample the grass in the Churchyard and dirty the water in the Holy Well, when the fine was 6/8d. A huge sum, when the rate for a days work was just 2d!

The fine for assault was 6d and if you drew blood 18d, except of course unless you were the chaplain, then assault and drawing blood would only cost 6d. It paid to know people in high places, as all the fines went to the Abbey anyway! One family, the Eggeoks, managed to avoid paying their fine of 2d for not clearing their ditches, from 1406 to 1470 when the fine was eventually paid. Perhaps they had other things on their minds. As Mike Hall pointed out, these everyday events in the little backwater of Romsley were nothing compared to the turmoil that the rest of England was experiencing with the Wars of the Roses and the rise and fall of many kings, in the same period.

Speculation forms the basis of a lot of history and there is still a lot of work to do on the Court Rolls. There is the intriguing task of matching people to places and connecting families, possibly with families who are living in Romsley today. Our thanks go to Dr. Hall for showing us that the Court Rolls have made our local history very real.

Pat Evans

Chairman's Annual Report 2014-2015

I am pleased to report that the membership of the Society continues to flourish.

Our Annual Dinner was held on the 13th June at Churchill and Blakedown Golf Club and my thanks go to our member Dr. Michael Hall for being our speaker for the evening.

The Annual Summer trip, bathed in sunshine, was a very informative guided tour of Wightwick Manor followed by a walk around the grounds.

Our Secretary, June, has once again given us a very good selection of speakers for the year. Robert Andrews has now taken over the role of booking speakers and has now booked a varied selection of speakers for 2015/2016.

Our President, Julian Hunt, continues to work tirelessly in his quest to research the history of the villages of Romsley and Hunnington, and provides information for the continuation of the Wills and Court Rolls team meetings. The Wills project continues with indexing all the information and my thanks go to the team for their continued support with this project.

I would also like to thank Julian for his financial contributions to the society from the many lectures he has given to other groups.

My thanks to June Humphreys for her hard work over the many years she has been Secretary, and although she is retiring from this position I am so pleased she will continue to be the Website Co-ordinator.

Our thanks to Jean Cockin for her continuing work interviewing residents of the villages and recording their memories.

My personal thanks to all committee members and helpers who contribute to the continuing success of the society, and, of course, to the members who attend on a monthly basis.

Paul Share, Chairman, 26th May 2015