Windmill Farm – rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk

Edward Alsop, of Alsop’s Hill and Alsop’s Quarry, died, aged 78 and was buried at St Giles on 7 September 1860, his abode given in the Burial Register as Blower’s Hill. Does anyone know where this was? I didn’t! And no-one in the local Facebook page knew either when I appealed there. But clearly the name was quite unremarkable to local officials who recorded information in parish Registers, compiled Poll Books and drafted Wills. They must have known where Edward was referring to. But I was puzzled, I had seen nothing to indicate that Edward had moved anywhere else, he appeared to have lived all of his life in the Windmill Farm. But I could not find Blower’s hill on any maps or in any online archives.

So I have been exploring down a little local history and genealogical rabbit hole, trying to find out where Blower’s Hill was.

Blower’s hill

The spelling and punctuation vary slightly but usually the Alsop family appear to have spelled Blower’s with an apostrophe – making Blower’s a possessive adjective. And often they did not capitalise Hill, as if it were just a description of part of the landscape, rather than a defined area.

I considered various issues:

What had this area been called before the Alsops arrived?

First of all, although the land there was known later as Alsop’s Quarry or Alsop’s Hill, it must have been called something before the Alsops came along in the mid-1700s. And it would probably have taken a few years/decades/generations of the family living there before it became associated with their name. Even then, although many records and maps show the land they farmed as Alsop’s Hill or Alsop’s quarry, the family appear always to have called it Blower’s hill.

So perhaps the earlier local descriptive name was ‘Blower’s Hill’, either for the windmill, which was apparently a manorial mill, so long established there.

Or perhaps the land was known by the name of a previous owner, since mostly the Alsops used a possessive apostrophe in the name and it was very common in this area for places to be named after their owners, such as Gadd’s Green, Darby’s Hill, Perry’s Lake, etc, etc.

So – were there any Blower families locally?

I searched all four volumes of the Rowley Parish Registers (1539-1849)for the name Blower and found just one! In 1573. a Thomas Davies married Agnes Blowere. So at some point there was at least one person called Blower or Blowere known of in the parish even if it was 200 years earlier! But when I extended the search on FreeREG to surrounding parishes (including 100 additional places within 7.5 miles) I found that , between 1750 and 1850 there were 314 entries of baptisms, marriages and burials in surrounding parishes. There were Blowers in Harborne, Halesowen, Wombourne, many, many in Penn, others in Oldswinford, Brierley Hill, Dudley, Sedgley, and especially latterly, in Bilston and Wolverhampton. Most of those are on an arc to the west of Dudley, between Harborne and Wolverhampton.

I was especially interested to note the marriage of a Susannah Blower to Joseph Hill at Clent in 1769, Rowley was a chapelry of Clent and quite a lot of Rowley people married there. And, of course, there were lots of the Hill family in the Lost Hamlets. And I also noted the marriage of Letticia Perry to John Blower in Sedgley in 1825 – hmmm, Perry’s Lake/Blower’s Hill, are immediately adjacent to each other in Rowley – interesting, perhaps their families had property interests in common!

So although there were very few Blowers in Rowley Regis in later centuries, there were plenty in adjacent areas.

The Electoral Records

Second: Another important clue lay in the Poll Books. Edward was shown in the 1837 and later Poll Books consistently with a house and land at this address, which was described as Blower’s hill Farm. I found Poll Book entries as early as 1837 – just after electoral reform had been enacted which would have given Edward the right to vote – and all of these identify his only property in Rowley Regis Parish as Blower’s hill farm, which was a house and land occupied, implying it was being farmed.

These voting rights were an important part of political and social reform in 19^th century Britain. There are interesting articles with further information here ( https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/what-caused-the-1832-great-reform-act/ ) and here(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832 ), and on numerous other pages. But it was not universal suffrage, the vote given to all men (and certainly no women!). The right to vote was extended to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more. So the holding of property had presumably been checked before being recorded in the Poll Books.

What did the family call it?

Thirdly, at least Edward’s generation of the family were calling it ‘Blower’s hill’, rather than Alsop’s Hill or Windmill Hill, over many years.

Answering my own question!

So I have gone through again all of the records I have found for Edward Alsop, looking carefully at the descriptions in those records.

And, finally, fourthly, looking carefully at the wording of the Probate record for Edward’s Will, shown here, it actually says that he is ‘late of the Mill Farm Blowers-hill in the parish of Rowley Regis.’ And his son Thomas and daughter Rhoda, as executors, are said to be ‘of Blowers-hill aforesaid’.

Which shows, it seems, that Blowers-hill was the name by which the area of land farmed by the Alsops was previously known, and that it and the Mill farm were one and the same place.

Another old Rowley place-name detected and, I believe, placed geographically, at least on my mental map!

Tag: Windmill Farm

Where was Blower’s hill?