Sandwell Valley History
Sandwell Valley has remained almost intact as one estate since the middle ages, when it was originally given to the monks of Sandwell Priory. After passing through several hands, it was eventually sold to the Earl of Dartmouth, who in turn sold it to West Bromwich Council in 1947.
Traces of the history of the Valley can be found in the landscape, including an Ice House, a Ha Ha (A ditch used to keep out animals) and traces of ridge and furrow ploughing.
If you visit the site of the hall and priory, you can find clear signs of various periods of its history, ranging from a hinge in the wall which dates from the building of the Priory to a gas or water supply pipe from the nineteenth century.
Swan Pool started life as a mill pond, before being extended twice, first to take the extra water being pumped out of the mine and later as a leisure facility. Some of the smaller ponds in the Valley are bomb craters from World War 2, but the one just past the Priory site, under the pylons, was actually a tank testing ground for tanks made locally during the war. During the Napoleonic campaigns, a firing range was created to train the militia. During World War 2, a barrage balloon was flown from a mooring in Dartmouth Park
History Update
Following recent research and a letter from Nottingham University, we now know more than we did before about the sequence of building at Sandwell Park Farm. Although we know a lot about the Hall, we have never been able to find any evidence of a landscape gardener associated with the Hall and Grounds, but an email received a from the head of geography at Nottingham University gave us the name we had been looking for.
Sir Uvedale Price visited Sandwell in 1806 and records his visit in a letter, saying that Lord and Lady Dartmouth were going to name part of the garden after him. We are now fairly certain that the great pool was constructed around the middle of the Eighteenth century,, just in time to be included on Shaw's map of 1755, but that Sandwell Park Farm was constructed later than previously thought, around 1800, as it first appears on the estate survey of 1806.
People of the Valley
This exhibition tells the story of the people who have lived in Sandwell Valley over the past 8, 000 years, from stone age hunter gatherers to the Earls of Dartmouth.
Visitors can see life sized reconstructions of a stone age hut, medieval priory kitchen and also see what the well originally looked like.