This, tho' joining to the parish of Birmingham, is a chapel of ease
belonging to Aston, two miles distant. Founded in the fifth of Richard
the Second, 1382.
This chapel does not, like others in Birmingham, seem to have been
erected first, and the houses brought round it: It appears, by its
extreme circumscribed latitude, to have been founded upon the scite of
other buildings, which were purchased, or rather given, by Sir John de
Birmingham, Lord of Deritend, and situated upon the boundaries of the
manor, perhaps to accommodate in some measure the people of Digbeth;
because the church in Birmingham must, for many-ages, have been too
small for the inhabitants.
Time seems to have worn out that building of 1382; in the windows of
which were the arms of Lord Dudley, and Dudley empaling Barckley, both
knights of the garter, descended from the Somery's, Barons of
Dudley-castle: Also a whole figure of Walter Arden, Esq; of ancient
family, often mentioned, Lord of Bordesley.
The present building was erected in 1735, and the steeple in 1762. In
1777 eight of the most musical bells, together with a clock, entered the
steeple. The present chaplain, the Rev. Thomas Cox--Income 80_l_.
[Illustration: _St. Bartholomew's Chapel_.]