Three miles from Birmingham, in the same direction, is _Wart-end_,
anciently _Little Bromwich_; a name derived from the plenty of broom,
and is retained to this day by part of the precincts, _Broomford_
(Bromford).
This manor was claimed by that favourite of the conqueror, Fitz-Ausculf,
and granted by him to a second-hand favourite, who took its name.
The old castle has been gone about a century; the works are nearly
complete, cover about nine acres, the most capacious in this
neighbourhood, those of Weoley-castle excepted. The central area is now
an orchard, and the water, which guarded the castle, guards the fruit.
This is surrounded with three mounds, and three trenches, one of them
fifty yards over, which, having lost its master, guards the fish.
The place afterwards passed through several families, till the reign of
Henry the Seventh. One of them bearing the name of _Ward_, changed the
name to _Ward-end_.
In 1512, it was the property of John Bond, who, fond of his little
hamlet, inclosed a park of thirty acres, stocked it with deer; and, in
1517, erected a chapel for the conveniency of his tenants, being two
miles from the parish church of Afton. The skeleton of this chapel, in
the form of a cross, the fashion of the times, is yet standing on the
outward mound: its floor is the only religious one I have seen laid with
horse-dung; the pulpit is converted into a manger--it formerly furnished
husks for the man, but now corn for the horse. Like the first christian
church, it has experienced a double use, a church and a stable; but with
this difference, _that_ in Bethlehem, was a stable advanced into a
church; this, on the contrary, is reduced into a stable.
The manor, by a female, passed through the Kinardsleys, and is now
possessed by the Brand-woods; but the hall, erected in 1710, and its
environs, are the property of Abraham Spooner, Esq.