Tales of Old Portway

On the 19^th August 1926, nearly 100 years ago, the Dudley Chronicle published an article which it entitled “Picturesque Portway – Interesting Facts about a Little Known Village”. I have not often seen Portway described as a village but no matter. And there seems to be some confusion in the mind of the writer as to where Portway village was, as the Portway Tavern is mentioned as being in the village. And cottages in Gadds Green are also mentioned in the article so Portway seems to be a very broad description covering several of the lost hamlets, rather than the area we know as Portway now. The writer clearly does not regard the area which I think of as the Lost Hamlets as part of Rowley village but rather as an insular self-contained community in itself. But there are indeed some interesting facts mentioned. And I am including it in the study of the Lost Hamlets because parts of the article refer to them.

Portway was introduced in the article as “a small ancient village on the slopes of the Rowley Hills, its associations stretching down into the very roots of our early history”.

The year this was written – 1926 – is significant because this was time of the General Strike, which lasted from 3^rd to the 12^th May. Much of the impetus for the strike related to the mining industry where the mines were in the ownership of private individuals and where working and safety conditions were poor and wages had been steadily reduced over a period of a seven year period was reduced from £6.00 to a miserly £3.90, an unsustainable figure contributing to severe poverty for a generation of workers and their families. When the mine owners announced their intentions in 1926 to reduce wages further and to increase working hours, they were met with fury by the Miners Federation. “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day” was the response of the miners.  Although the General Strike was only for a few days, the dispute between miners and mine owners lasted in some areas until November of that year.

Copyright: Anthony Page

One of the results of that, and not for the first time, was that people went out digging bits of coal from waste heaps around the mines, as shown on this photograph from Anthony Page’s first book on Blackheath, though he dated this photograph to 1912. But pits were already closing before that, according to Chitham, due to being worked out or because they were flooded, owing to the various owners being unable to agree on a comprehensive drainage scheme. During the 1926 General Strike, no coal was being produced which meant that the mine pumping engines had no coal and water rose in all the mines, sometimes to the top of the shafts. Coal picking on pit mounds became commonplace and Chitham says that miners assembled in hundreds to protest and support the pickers for the pit banks were also being explored by the mine owners, attempting to supply customers – removing waste coal, slack and other material was illegal for the public. But the damage was done to the mines, most of the pits never recovered.

So it was this background which led the article in the Dudley Chronicle to describe Portway as “a miniature Eldorado for coal-pickers since the commencement of the coal strike”. The result of the activities of the coal pickers was that “moss capped pit mounds, derelict these many years, to which Time has brought some appreciable improvement in aspect and old pathways, leading over sites of collieries long forgotten – few wanted to remember them – have been dug up and are now honeycombed with potholes and chasms.” There was a specific example mentioned of a well used path which led from Whiteheath Villa into Throne Road and which was said to be now full of holes, some five feet deep and several yards in circumference, which the writer feared might prove very dangerous on dark nights if they remained unfilled!

Although the writer did not claim that the area was all beautiful – “Portway’s greatest admirer would not call the village beautiful” – he considered that centuries before the area must have been “replete with aesthetic scenery” and must have commanded “one of the most charming panoramas in South Staffordshire”, which he considered had not been destroyed by industry. “There are many more natural altitudes in the county but none of the scenes visible from them is more beautiful today than that part of Worcestershire which, when visibility is good, can be seen from the apex of Portway’s heights, beyond the smoke and dust of the intermediate industrial parts”. A touch of the Hackney Marshes in that observation, methinks.

The situation, the writer continues, was different now in 1926. The many derelict pit mounds, of gigantic proportions, had been beginning to assume a vernal aspect and might have been, in a few years, as verdant as the Rowley Hills themselves, but were now as much of an eyesore as ever they were. “Just when people were beginning to comment upon the phenomenal aptitude of plants and herbage to grow and flourish on derelict land, the all life-giving powers of nature were frustrated by a few weeks of economic distress”. Perhaps not quite how the miners and their families would have seen it!

However, the article goes on to say that Portway would remain attractive because the fascination of the ‘obscure little village’ was attributable to “its old-world atmosphere, its divers associations with the past and old and interesting legends which had been handed down through the generations and will doubtless survive more incredulous generations than our own”.

Here are some of the things the writer found of interest in 1926.

The legend of the Finger i’ the hole cottage

This is a story much discussed on the Facebook page “I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis” with several variations on a theme. So here is the story which was being told by local people in 1926.

“One of the strangest of the legends is that of the Scotsman, who, when collecting money from the cottages in Gadds Green, Portway, went to a cottage, put his finger in the hole provided to lift the latch, and had it chopped off by the occupant.

Our representative visited the now dilapidated cottage where the incident is reputed to have taken place. The cottage is the fourth of a row, and is known in the neighbourhood as “Finger ‘o the hole cottage. “

Copyright: Alan Godfrey Maps

Here is the 1902 OS map of Gadd’s Green and there are indeed four cottages in a row – could this be the location of the legendary Finger i’ the Hole Cottage?

The article continues “The front of the building was blown out one winter’s night many years ago when the occupant was a Mrs Cox, now of Gornal, and it has never since been repaired. The cottage is said to be over 300 years old and one family – that of Hill, members of which reside in an adjacent cottage – lived there for nearly 200 years. It is constructed of rough grey sandstone, and originally had two rooms, one up and one down. A stout roughly hewn oak beam, crossing the building from gable to gable, indicates where the first floor once rested, and shows that the height of the living room was under six feet. Occupying one-half of the building is a spacious old-fashioned fire-place, with a large open chimney and contiguous bake ovens. No fewer than ten men can comfortably stand in the aperture once occupied by the grate and its side seats.”

What a picture that paints! The Hill family were certainly in the area of the hamlets, two families of them in Gadd’s Green, then called Finger i’ the hole, in the 1841 Census and in later censuses also in Perry’s Lake.

A Royal Visit

“Another well known legend about the locality” the article goes on “is that concerning King John. It is said that in the early part of his reign the King visited the neighbourhood, and set up his throne in Throne Road. The site is supposedly marked by a group of four old cottages at the bottom of the road, and the story was once printed and sold by an enterprising grocer in the district. Verisimilitude is given to this otherwise almost incredible story by the fact that King John was greatly interested in Worcester, in the adjacent county (where he was buried) and was a frequent visitor to that place. He also frequently hunted in the forests of Kinver and Feckenham, which are not far distant from Portway.

The legend associated with Romsley in Halesowen, is that King John came onto Romsley Hill and, seeing the Premonstratensian monastery [presumably Halesowen Abbey] from that altitude, a circumstance he had wished to avert, walked away in disgust, also tends to give credibility to the Throne Road episode.”

What interests me about this account is that, although I had never heard about the Romsley story, my mother told me that she had been told as a child that Bell End was so called because King John had a Hunting Lodge there where a bell was rung to guide the hunters back after the chase. So that is another story which associates the Rowley area specifically with King John.  I have also wondered how the area which always seemed to be known as ‘The Throne’, long before it became Throne Road, got such a name. So perhaps it just may be true. And I have not seen any convincing account of how the area came to be Rowley Regis, Rowley of the King. Maybe, maybe…

Roman Portway

The article also tells of possible associations of the area with the Romans. The name Portway itself is, the writer claims, indicative of a Roman Road over the heath, or perhaps the old line of British trackway. I have heard it suggested that it may have been one of the ‘white ways’, the roads along which salt was transported around the country. These roads often passed through places with the word white included in their name, presumably because the salt was white. And it may or may not be coincidence that our portway road passes through Whiteheath…

Another Roman connection mentioned in the article relates to the discovery in 1794, when some workmen were demolishing a wall in the locality and discovered an ancient pot or vase which contained a large number of Roman silver coins. The article states these two indications go “conclusively to show that Romans once occupied the neighbourhood, which was in those days of considerable strategical importance, owing to its altitude”.

I must admit, I am not quite as convinced as the writer obviously was but it would be nice to know where those Roman coins went to!

 Portway Houses

A peculiar characteristic of a number of old cottages in Portway was noticeable, apparently, which was that one or perhaps more of the windows in each were  bricked up, undoubtedly by former tenants (or landlords) to evade the window tax. As an alternative to paying tax, the article suggested that “our forebears could live solitary lives in darkened tenements”.

The window tax was in force from 1695 to 1851 and led to many windows or openings being closed up to avoid the tax. a tax of two shillings was set for all homes with up to ten windows, with four more shillings payable by those with up to twenty windows and a further four shillings on top of that by those with more than thirty. The tariffs were varied over time. In 1766 the primary threshold was adjusted to seven windows. Unsurprisingly, the number of homes with exactly seven windows swiftly plummeted by an estimated two thirds. This legislation apparently gave rise to the expression ‘daylight robbery’.

An article online suggests that “the health of the population was significantly affected by the inevitable tax planning manoeuvres of the day. Even by the mid 18th century the medical profession were clear that living without adequate light and ventilation was causing increased typhus, smallpox and cholera and this is borne out by the Public Health Reports  I wrote about recently. The tax, and property owners’ attempts to avoid it, had become a primary cause of death for many of the country’s poor”.

One can, of course, still sometimes see houses where windows have been bricked up for this purpose but generally only in fairly substantial houses though this may only be because the poorer dwellings have long since fallen down or been demolished.

Also on local houses, the writer observed that there were a large number of houses in Throne Road which were of some antiquity.

Old Portway Farm, 1960s. Copyright unknown but will be gladly acknowledged on receipt of information.

Several apparently had doors “on the outside of which was quaint partially corroded iron decorative work, the stout weather-beaten panels being held together by wooden pegs. Some of the cottages are partially erected of unpolished grey sandstone; some half- timbered, quaint and diminutive; a few large and of comparatively good architecture, whilst one – Portway Hall, in Throne Road, has a conspicuously fine frontage and is of imposing structure. The date of its erection, according to a plate over the large hall door, is 1672. On the plate is the head of a judge, which suggests that the building might have been the residence of a county judge, sheriff or magistrate.”

Portway Hall. Copyright unknown.

“The writer was permitted to look over the interior of the Portway Hall. The furniture is of considerable antiquity, some being of the seventeenth century. In the dining room, one is first impressed by a massive brightly polished chandelier; next by innumerable old vases decorated with quaint figure work in divers hues, and finally the eye is attracted by large dark oak chairs, which are carved, like the ancient miserere seats in our ancient cathedrals. Halfway up the large wide staircase leading to the first floor, one meets two cavities in the wall, each side a high stained glass window which are now occupied by vases but which were unquestionably made to hold statuettes. The ceilings of most of the rooms are richly scalloped in fine art and in the hall door, the stained glass, which is of another century, is very picturesque.”

Many current members of the Facebook page can remember visiting Portway Hall in the latter part of the 20^th century, it is interesting to read an account written in the early 1900s. What a pity that this hall did not survive.

The Portway Tavern

The Portway Tavern is described as “the rendezvous of generations of quarrymen”, referring to recent renovations which had done much to modernise the exterior but it was noted that “the interior is pervaded with an old-world atmosphere. On a rack in the smoke room are twenty-two churchwarden pipes, numbered and tobacco stained, the blackest belonging to the oldest and most regular attendant at the pipe club which meets in the tavern on winter evenings.”

Churchwarden pipes. Copyright Pipes Magazine.

The people of the area

The writer concludes that Portway is secluded and peaceful, its people on the whole an insular contented lot whose families have lived in the same cottages or the same street and worked at the same occupation for generations. He describes how, a stranger, stopping to ask a question, in a moment, is surrounded by a crowd of well-meaning inquisitive folk each contributing to the reply. Once the bona fides of the visitor is established, which he says is not easily wrought, he will be taken into their cottages and treated as one of themselves.

“There is a strangeness of spirit, so different from the traditional English. The men folk work on their doorsteps in the quarry and although they chose to remain secluded, their contribution to the world’s market – the famous Rowley Rag – has brought the urban district fame.

At the conclusion of this fascinating article the writer notes that many people – even in Rowley District would never have seen a quarry from which the Rag is produced. He describes a typical quarry, now derelict, standing near the apex of Portway (in which, remember, he includes Gadds Green and Perry’s Lake). He writes:

“It is a gigantic cavity, half a mile in circumference and of tremendous depth. The steep moss carpeted escarpments, the massive grey and brown sandstone and rock cliffs constitute a very impressive picture. Poised on the very precipice of the quarry is a small ivy clad house, which looks down on the Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Herefordshire Counties. The Malvern, Clent and Warley heights are clearly visible and stretched out, as on an opened Survey Map, are Smethwick, Oldbury, Langley, Frankley and their contiguous townships and villages.”

The Blue Rock Quarry, Copyright Jim Rippin.

“Only with a view such as obtains from this altitude can one realise the multiplicity of two counties industries; the diversity of landscape; the strange mixture of the urban and the rural in Worcestershire; the ugliness of the squat, smoking workers’ cottages in the close proximity, and the extent to which man has despoiled the natural face of the Black Country.”

There is no by-line on this article, we cannot know whose thoughts and observations we are sharing a century later when that landscape has again changed beyond recognition. But it offers, I think, a fascinating glimpse of our hamlets and life in them a century ago. He was not completely correct about insularity, we now know, we have learned about the Rowley men who went off to work in other areas. But I think he may have captured something of the atmosphere of these small communities and the people who lived in them for centuries.