HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 147 



A canal has been made to the town, communicating with the lower 

 level of the Birmingham canal, and iron mines opened on its banks. 

 The Wyrley and Essington Canal also approaches within a short 

 distance of Walsall. 



There are several places of worship in Walsall appropriated to 

 dissenters. There is also an excellent Free Grammar School. 



Bloxwich, in the foreign of Walsall, is situated to the north-west, 

 between two and three miles distant from that town. This populous 

 hamlet has a small chapel of ease, and maintains its own poor. 

 According to the following inscription on a tombstone in the chapel- 

 yard, the inhabitants of Bloxwich have been strenuous in the main- 

 tenance of their independence : 



" To the memory of Samuel Wilkes, late of this parish, lock- 

 smith, who died 6th November, 1764. Reader ! if thou art an in- 

 habitant of Great Bloxwich, KNOW, that the dust beneath thy feet 

 (when overseer of the poor of this parish) was imprisoned in thy 

 cause, because he refused to surrender thy rights, and to submit to 

 an arbitrary mandate, by which it was intended to incorporate the 

 poor-rates of the foreign with those of the borough, and thereby 

 to compel the foreign to the payment of a greater proportion of 

 parochial taxes than is warranted by law ; his resistance was at- 

 tended with success. The benefit is thine." 



The foreign of Bloxwich consists of two villages, called Great 

 and Little Bloxwich. Great Bloxwich is situated on a lofty emi- 

 nence, and is a large and populous village, inhabited by manufac- 

 turers of saddlers' ironmongery. There is a large open comrnon, 

 and a common field of gcpd sound arable land, belonging to Great 

 Bloxwich. The chapel is a donative in the gift of the inhabitants. 

 Little Bloxwich is a mile to the north, and farther from. Walsall ; 

 the Wyrley canal passes through it. 



The road from Walsall to Stafford passes through Bloxwich; a 

 road also branches off to Lichfield, and another to Wolverhampton. 



RUSHALL is an ancient manor and village, situated on the road to 

 Lichfield, between one and two miles distant from Walsall, on the 

 north-east. At the time of the Conquest, a Saxon family called 

 Neel, of Rushall, had been long settled here, and its representative 

 did fealty to the Conqueror, and his descendants remained in pos- 

 session of the manor for some generations afterwards. 



The Leigh family have been in possession of Rushall for more 

 than two centuries. The ancient mansion, which is now in ruins, is 

 described by Erdeswick as " built about with a wall, and a gate- 





