Rowley Regis was once a small ancient village on the top of a very high hill in South Staffordshire, now apparently absorbed seamlessly into the enveloping sprawl of the West Midlands conurbation. It has had several other municipal designations due to local Government re-organisations in the last century but historically, it was in South Staffordshire – that’s what it said on my school exercise books, so I know! The other, less defined, description is that Rowley Regis was in the Black Country, that nebulous area of industry, metal working, mining, quarrying and sheer hard work and where probably most of the population lived in what we would think of now as poverty.
Although Rowley Regis is an interesting name – yes, at one time, part of it was held by the King, possibly as a hunting area – by the 19th century the village was of no particular note, the main industries in and around the village were quarrying the very hard ‘Rowley Rag’ stone from various quarries on the hill, mining and, above all, in Rowley itself, wrought iron hand nail making which was mostly carried out in small ‘shops’ at the back of houses, and involved whole families, men, women and children from about the age of six. The metal working skills of the local people and the plentiful supplies of the raw materials required meant that, as the Industrial Revolution progressed, hand nail and chain making fell into history and the metal working and myriad engineering skills gave rise to a vast landscape of heavy and polluting industry, canals, mines and brickworks.
I am a Rowley girl. I was born there, grew up and was educated there and lived there until I was eighteen. My parents and grandparents and many of their forebears were born there too and lived out their lives there. My mother told me stories about the area when I was growing up and I started my family history research in about 1980 and have been working on it ever since.
Retired after many years working in local government and now living in the West Country, during the first Covid lockdown I volunteered to transcribe parish registers at home from photographs for FreeREG, for Rowley Regis and Blackheath, the adjacent town which developed just down the road in the mid 19th Century, after the glebe lands belonging to the church were sold. This has included many non-conformist registers, which have never been available online previously.
Very quickly I noticed that many of the family names in those registers were familiar although some of them I had not come across for many years, since I moved away. But I had been at chapel and school with those names! It was also apparent from the Registers and from the various censuses that as well as the village proper, there were a number of hamlets on the edge of the village, some large and some small, and that families tended to stay within these hamlets or nearby. They appear to have been close-knit little communities. Some of my ancestors seemed to stay very firmly in and around the hamlets of Perry’s Lake, Gadds Green, Tipperty Green and Turners Hill, for example, which were very small settlements barely a mile from the village church and within half a mile of each other. Gradually as houses were built, new roads opened, transport improved and development spread, addresses were formalised and house numbers began to appear in the parish registers and censuses and some of the old names for the hamlets became less significant.
There is a very active and informative Facebook page about memories of Rowley Regis and Blackheath, the town. Recently one person asked on the Facebook page where Gadds Green was, because Poppy memorials were being placed near the homes of soldiers who had died in the First World War and one of those had come from Gadds Green. She couldn’t find any trace of it. I had not realised until then that quarrying had completely obliterated Gadds Green, and much of Perry’s Lake and the houses on Turners Hill – they only existed now on old maps. Other local names do not even appear on maps – there has been some animated discussion on the page about where a place called ‘Finger-i-the-hole’ was and most local people will never have heard of Blackberry Town, which appears in the 1841 census.
Several of the local historians using the page were able to tell the Facebook enquirer where Gadds Green had been. But it seemed a pity to me that these lost hamlets, home to so many of my ancestors, have not only physically disappeared but are now fading from local memory. Through my various researches and transcribing church registers and censuses, I have gathered quite a lot of information about these places, who lived there, who ran the shops and pubs, where people worked and worshipped and who married who.
So I have decided to create a One Place Study about these ‘lost hamlets’. My study will initially concentrate on the hamlets of Perry’s Lake, Gadd’s Green and Turner’s Hill, clustered to the North-West of the village centre, during the period 1840-1921, principally looking initially at censuses, parish registers , maps and what these can tell us about the people who lived there. The people and their lives are my main interest. I suspect that it will expand both geographically and in time period as particular information and resources come to hand. I will be posting to this site with new posts about aspects of life in the hamlets and will add maps and photographs in due course.
And by starting a One Place Study, now registered with the Society for One Place Studies, hopefully information about the people who lived in those ‘lost hamlets’ and in due course, others of the ‘lost hamlets’ can be preserved in a study where other people can also contribute their knowledge to it and where later researchers can find the answer to ‘Where was Gadd’s Green?’.
rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk 
Thank you for the recently provided report of The Portway Tavern 1889 case in which Joseph Pensotti is mentioned. He was the great-great-grandfather of my late husband George Pensotti and did indeed come from Italy, from the small town of Margno high up above Lake Como. He married an English girl and his descendants remained in England and thrived. His grandson (Charles Bernard Pensotti) was a successful businessman and a hotel owner in Rottingdean, Brighton (died 1948), and his great-grandson (Cuthbert) was a London barrister. George was an actor/playwright who died in 2010. Incidentally, George’s great-nephew (18) is also named Joseph Pensotti and has just successfully completed training as a Royal Marine.
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Diana, thank you so much for your comment and the information in it. It is good to have my suppositions confirmed!
Joseph Pensotti was described in the Will of James Adshead Levett, written in 1876, as “my friend Joseph Pensotti of Dudley” and in the prosecution was noted as living at Kate’s Hill, Dudley which is just two miles from Rowley Regis. I think that this friend was Joseph the son of the original Joseph who had moved to England from Italy, not least because the original Joseph was born in about 1785 so would have been ninety by the time the Will was proved and over 100 by the time of the prosecution. The second Joseph was born in Dudley in 1819. He also had a son Joseph, born in Rowley Regis in 1841 (all the subsequent children in Dudley), so there is a whole succession of Joseph Pensottis, also Charles and Francis were recurring family names. Family baptisms and burials appear to have taken place at the Catholic Church of St Chad and All Saints at Sedgley which was probably the nearest Roman Catholic Church.
The original Joseph was obviously a talented and entrepreneurial man, he is described in numerous Directories of the period as variously – a carver and gilder in High Street, Dudley in 1822, a Barometer dealer and Umbrella maker , also Hardware in 1835. Other Barometer dealers were also listed in Dudley, all with Italian names – Peter, Andrew and John Comoli, Mark Mallugani. In 1840 he was listed as an Umbrella maker and Toy Dealer (as were Andrew Comoli again and Mark Malugani again) and in the census listing in1841, he was a Jeweller. He also had an apprentice Jeweller living in his household by the name of Charles Fegotti, also born in Foreign Parts so perhaps a family connection from Italy. In 1842 he was in Market Place, Dudley, and described as a Barometer & Thermometer Etc. Manufacturer. Also listed were Charles Cassera, Carlo Cetti, Andrew Comoli, all in Market Street and High Street. Looking at old maps it appears that Market Street and High Street were actually the same road and I do wonder whether these Italians were working in partnership as they were within a very short distance of each other in Dudley! He was described as a Toy maker at various baptisms of his children in Sedgley as early as 1813 and in the record of his daughter Mary’s marriage in 1843 (she married John Caswell the ‘boy next door’ who was a tobacconist) Joseph’s occupation was given as ‘Gentleman’. I have images in my mind of beautifully carved and painted wooden toys!So he certainly seemed to have thrived here and, as you can tell me, his children and descendants did also.
The original Joseph was still alive in 1841 as he appears in the Census that year, his place of birth shown as ‘Foreign Parts’. But I have been unable to find him after that date nor any death registration for him.
The second Joseph was a postman and, at one time, a publican (like James Levett) and appears to have died in 1899, although his son Joseph sadly predeceased him in 1891, in the Lunatic Asylum near Worcester, very sad and leaving four young children, one of whom was a Joseph (b.1881) who became a baker and confectioner – versatiilty seems to have been a family trait.
I have very much enjoyed a little delve into this particular genealogical rabbithole, I have drawn up a small family tree to try to sort out the various Josephs in my mind and may yet do a follow up piece for my blog on the Pensottis at least in the 1800s if you have no objection. As I am retired my research keeps my brain well occupied and it is always interesting to look at unfamiliar families and records.
Many thanks again for getting in touch.
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Hello
I read in your blog that you lived in Uplands Avenue. My family did also, just over half way up on the right (after the circular part). My great grandparents moved when the houses were new! The Picken family (Alice and Alfred), then my grandparents Dorothy (Picken) and Peter Meyers. Dorothy had a brother Tom and sister Thelma. Other neighbours included Mr and Mrs Harris (further up), the Burtons and Nixons. I wondered if you could remember the shops at the bottom of the road – I recall a butchers on the corner, Hurdman’s grocers where grandma would send me for “half a pound of streaky bacon”. There was a shop called Cottons which was aprons etc and I’m sure there was Hingley’s fruit and veg – do you remember Hingley’s? Lovely to read your wonderful blog! Helen
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Hello, Helen, thanks for your comment. We lived at 134 which was about halfway along the top section of Uplands, just at the top of Highbury Avenue. Strangely I was back in the area last week for a Local History Conference and I had a drive round, parking in Uplands Avenue for a few minutes. It looks pretty much the same as ever, except that there is so much traffic everywhere, so many parked cars and all the local roads seem to have got very narrow these days! I live in the countryside now, I’m not used to the traffic! But it was a good place to grow up.
Yes, I remember the shops down on the Oldbury Road, and yes, there was a butchers and Hingley’s greengrocers. If you are on Facebook there is a wonderful page called “I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis” where there has been some discussion about those shops and photographs of some of them. Being at the top of the road though, we usually used the shops on the corner of Uplands and Mincing Lane and the ones further up towards Bell End. I don’t recognise any of the names you mention but when I was looking at it last week, I was reflecting that we never got to know anyone on that section of the Avenue, though my brother and I knew our immediate neighbours and the children along the top, and in Highbury Evenue – proximity and going to primary schcool together, I guess! In my mind’s eye I can go along our little group of houses and remember the names of the neighbours, even now. I’m pleased you enjoy my blog, it’s great fun to write.
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Hello from Western Australia
I came upon your amazing blog quite by chance while researching my maternal grandfather”s family who came from the Rowley Regis/Cradley area and were involved in the iron works/industry there.
(I have a whole list of ancestors and indirect ancestors who were nailors, iron rollers, puddlers etc.)
I was particularly keen to find out about Five Ways (1861) and Surfeit Hill (1862) and Hawn Lane in the 1880s – but your blog has fired my imagination with a greater understanding of the whole area which is wonderful.
Like you, I pore over Census returns to get a ‘feel’ for where my ancestors lived and worked and love looking sideways at neighbours or employers.
My Mum ( 1923) was born on Halesowen Road and as a young girl went to Tenter St School and out to work at 14 – eventually working in the offices at Stewarts and Lloyds (possibly pre war)
As well as your blog I have also found the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis page ‘- brilliant photos and memories.
Kind regards
Julie M
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