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Many thanks for the reply.
Here is the map that I have, it's very similar to yours but a little more detailed.
I well remember the lane your mother talks about,it used to be a short-cut to Uplands Avenue. When you went through the gate at the top into the field you were in another world. On the same level were the air-raid shelters and to your left, but at a lower level was a playing field. This used to belong to Bingley St school and there was an old cricket pavilion. The boundary to the left adjoined the rear gardens to Uplands Drive and the boundary to the front adjoined the rear gardens in Uplands Avenue. There used to be a stream running along this boundary. We were friends with the Jones's who lived at 23 Uplands Avenue and they used to let us cross a little bridge into their back garden. I used to live at No. 20 across the road.
I used to go to Warstones Rd school and to get to school I could walk down Uplands Ave, cut across where the old farm used to be, walk along the stream and come out into Trysull Rd by Desboroughs stores. (there is still a shop there). I would then walk up to-wards where the Imperial dairy used to be and then cut left up a little lane which came out not far from the island at the top of Oxbarn Ave, then down to the school which had only just opened, 1941.
Happy days.

Hi Bob,

A few months ago I brought up the subject of Dead Lad's Grave and still it bugs me. Your mention above of a stream is very interesting and I have a tentative theory, but depends on the source and course of Graisley Brook. You may be able to help?

I think that the Anglo Saxon boundary, from the Wolverhampton Charter of 985, follows Graisley Brook to meet the Smestow Brook. On the modern maps there is a section of Graisley Brook shown, running between Merridale Road and Compton Road, but from there to the Smestow is now culverted.

On the boundary map shown in a book by Della Hooke, who seems to be a great authority on the subject, the brook takes a turn from a SE direction to a SW direction a short distance from the end of the modern map.

However, as I have confidence in the scale of the representation, the distance travelled by the brook is perhaps two thirds the distance of that from the turn to the Smestow. This would mean that it could come somewhere near your stream?

The bottom line here is that the Anglo Saxon boundary takes a left turn from an ancient road that passes Finchfield, to reach near the source of the missing brook. The point that it left the road was at a tree called "geaggan treow" and some take this to be a tree named after a person, but there is a theory that it may be "Gallows Tree"

Now Dead Lad's Grave is at a crossroads that could be quite close to this turn! 

All the best Peter

Thanks Cathy for the links.

Stan I agree about the cartographer and here is a link to the 1888 OS Map showing St James…

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55137&sheetid=8229&ox=0&oy=0&zm=1&czm=10&x=220&y=426

Why I asked was the entry below for Hanbury on British  History online..
Hanbury (St. James)

HANBURY (St. James), a parish, in the union of Burton-upon-Trent, N. division of the hundred of Offlow and of the county of Stafford; comprising the townships of Coton, Draycott-in-the-Clay, Fauld, Hanbury, Hanbury-Woodend, and Marchington-Woodlands, and the chapelries of Marchington and Newborough; the whole containing 2483 inhabitants, of whom 114 are in the township of Hanbury, 6¾ miles (N. W. by W.) from Burton. This parish is very extensive, being upwards of five miles square. The living is a vicarage not in charge, in the gift of the Bishop of Lichfield: the tithes have been commuted for £862, of which £510 are paid to the bishop, and £352 to the vicar, who has also a glebe of 20 acres. The church, principally in the later English style, with a Norman font, was repewed, and the north aisle rebuilt, in 1824. Marchington and Newborough form separate incumbencies. A school is endowed with about £24 per annum, and there are several bequests for the poor. In the year 680, the Saxon princess, St. Werburgh, became abbess of a nunnery founded here by her brother Ethelred, King of Mercia: she was buried in this convent; but in 876 her remains were removed to Chester, where an elegant shrine was erected to her memory. No vestige of the nunnery is now visible.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51003&strquery=st%20james%20hanbury#s7

Regards Peter

Hi Bob,

I had a feeling that “Bottomless Pit” would be way too old for anyone to remember.

Returning to “Dead Lad’s Grave” I found this site British Archaeology, no 25, June 1997

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba25/BA25FEAT.HTML

It appears that Crossroad burial was abolished by Act of Parliament in 1823, and I have a feeling that our Dead Lad was a suicide as opposed to a criminal.

…At a crossroads on the Icknield Way, near Moulton on the border of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, there is a neatly maintained patch of flowers at a spot known as the Boy's Grave. Folklore holds that a shepherd boy believed he had lost a sheep, but afraid of being accused of its theft and hanged or transported to Australia, he hanged himself. When the sheep were counted none were missing. Having taken his own life he was buried at this crossroads. People interested in the story now tend the grave…

….Andrew Percival's Notes on Old Peterborough (1905) described how a suicide burial called the Girl's Grave was marked by a stone in a cottage garden, now built over. The girl can almost certainly be identified with Elizabeth James, who poisoned herself after an unsuccessful romance. The Stamford Mercury of 31 May 1811 said she was buried on the edge of town by six female relatives dressed in white. In these instances it only took about a century for the buried persons' identities to be obscured

I don’t think we will ever know the identity, but RIP.

Best wishes Peter

 




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oh now you piqued my interest again! with my family being a gun lock making family, the Braziers... there were many arms of this family, In bradmore, Brickiln lane area, and across wolverhamptn, as well as birmingham and London ...   http://www.wolverhampton-gunlocks.fslife.co.uk/  theres a big list in the page above (and in the list is Charles Brazier, of Church Road and Victoria road- My great great uncle, and frederick brazier, My 3 x great grandfather.. I wonder if those firings were to do w him too? the Braziers gun business is still going today too, albeit in name only... both in England and Colorado www.josephbrazier.com/history

Fascinating, and thanks for the link. At the site it mentions the Church records for the Braziers and also the Stantons!

Regards Peter

and ive never heard of Bradmore called Bradmore Fields  before, but I love it

My late walking mucker and myself had our lunch in many a Churchyard surrounded by grand old yew trees. Sometimes under them for shade or shelter!

Talking of yew trees, from the same booklet Investigating Penn, it mentions a school founded in 1714 for poor children at Springhill. It says that a Yew tree (1975) still marks the spot at Wynn Crescent, and a stone from the school was incorporated in the wall of St. Bartholomew's Church at Penn.

 Does anyone know if the tree is still there?

All the best Peter