Three miles north-east of Birmingham, is _Erdington-hall_, which boasts
a long antiquity. The manor was the property of the old Earls of Mercia:
Edwin possessed it at the conquest, but lost it in favour of William
Fitz-Ausculf, who no doubt granted it in knight's service to his friend
and relation, of Norman race, who erected the hall; the moat, took his
residence in, and his name Erdington, from the place. His descendants
seem to have resided here with great opulence near 400 years.
Dugdale mentions a circumstance of Sir Thomas de Erdington, little
noticed by our historians. He was a faithful adherent to King John, who
conferred on him many valuable favours: harrassed by the Pope on one
side, and his angry Barons on the other, he privately sent Sir Thomas to
Murmeli, the powerful King of Africa, Morocco, and Spain; with offers
to forsake the christian faith, turn mahometan, deliver up his kingdom,
and hold it of him in tribute, for his assistance against his enemies.
But it does not appear the ambassador succeeded: the Moorish Monarch did
not chuse to unite his prosperous fortune with that of a random prince;
he might also consider, the man who could destroy his nephew and his
sovereign, could not be an honour to any profession.
The manor left the Erdington family in 1472, and, during a course of 175
years, acknowledged for its owners, George Plantagenet, Duke of
Clarence, Sir William Harcourt, Robert Wright, Sir Reginald Bray,
Francis Englefield, Humphry Dimock, Walter Earl, Sir Walter Devereux,
and was, in 1647, purchased by Sir Thomas Holte, in whose family it
continued till 1782, when Henage Legge, Esq; became seised of the manor.
As none of the Lords seem to have resided upon the premises since the
departure of the Erdingtons, it must be expected they have gradually
tended to decay.
We may with some reason conclude, that as Erdington was the freehold of
the Earls of Mercia, it was not the residence of its owners, therefore
could not derive its name from them. That as the word _Arden_ signifies
a wood, the etymology of that populous village is, _a town in the wood_.
That one of the first proprietors, after the conquest, struck with the
security offered by the river, erected the present fortifications, which
cover three parts of the hall, and the river itself the fourth. Hence it
follows, that the neighbouring work, which we now call Bromford-forge,
was a mill prior to the conquest; because the stream is evidently turned
out of its bed to feed it. That the present hall is the second on the
premises, and was erected by the Erdingtons, with some later additions.