Page:A century of Birmingham life- or, A chronicle of local events, from 1741 to 1841 (IA centuryofbirming01lang).pdf/26

 "The exact accounts, still extant, of the possessions and rents of the Gild of the Holy Cross of Birmingham, observe the same distinction; and this distinction is further found in the Letters Patent (often erroneously called 'Charter') which endowed the Free Grammar School with part of the possessions of the Gild of the Holy Cross. Those Letters Patent enumerate, among other things, 'all those lands, fields, meadows, pastures, and hereditaments, whatsoever, with the appurtenances, called or known by the name or names of Long-Croft. Bynges, Rotton-Fields, Walmores, and Saint Mary Wood, lying and being in the Foreign of Birmingham aforesaid,' These properties are still in the possession (pace Railways) of the Governors of the Free School, and can be readily identified.

"The few facts which I have thus thrown together are well worth preserving. In the hurry and bustle of modern 'progress,' Birmingham men are too apt to forget that Birmingham is one of the most ancient towns in England; and is a town that has always flourished, from and during the time when every description marked the 'Foreign of Birmingham' from the 'Borough of Birmingham and Deritend,' down to our own days, when the '' has swallowed up, in its capacious maw, every trace, except in still living street names of the ancient '{{sc|Foreign.'"

Birmingham was early famous for the mechanical skill and industry of the people. After Domesday Book, the earliest mention of the town is by Leland, and he alludes at the same time to the prettiness of the place, and to the extent of its manufactures. He visited the town in 1538, and entered in his Itinerary this often quoted account of Birmingham three hundred and thirty years ago:—

"I came through a pretty street, or ever I entred, into Bermingham towne. This street, as I remember, is called Dirtey. In it dwell smithes and cutlers, and there is a brooke that divideth this street from Bermighan, and is an Hamlett, or Member, belonginge to the Parish therebye.

"There is at the end of Dirtey a propper chappell, and mansion house of tymber, hard on the ripe, as the brooke runneth downe; and as I went through the ford by the {{dhr}} {{reflist}}