A mile east of Duddeston is _Saltley-hall_, which, with an extensive
track of ground, was, in the Saxon times, the freehold of a person whom
we should now call Allen; the same who was Lord of Birmingham. But at
the conquest, when justice was laid asleep, and property possessed by
him who could seize it, this manor, with many others, fell into the
hands of William Fitz-Ausculf, Baron of Dudley-castle, who granted it in
knight's-service to Henry de Rokeby.
A daughter of Rokeby carried it by marriage to Sir John Goband, whose
descendants, in 1332, sold it to Walter de Clodshale; an heiress of
Clodshale, in 1426, brought it into the ancient family of Arden, and a
daughter of this house, to that of Adderley, where it now rests.
The castle, I have reason to think, was erected by Rokeby, in which all
the lords resided till the extinction of the Clodshales.--It has been
gone to ruin about three hundred years, and the solitary platform seems
to mourn its loss.