SEISDON HUNDRED. 



THIS Hundred, which takes its name from a small village six 

 miles from Wolverhampton, includes the south-west part of the 

 county, and contains twenty-one parishes. 



WOLVERHAMPTON. 



The first mention of this place upon record, is, that the pious 

 Wulfrune, relict of Athelme, Duke of Northampton, in 996, built 

 and endowed the church or monastery here, which was called from 

 her name and title Wulfrunes-hampton, whence its present name. 



Wolverhampton stands on a rising ground, is a considerable ma- 

 nufacturing town, and the largest in the county : it has a weekly 

 market on Wednesday, and one annual fair on the 10th of July. 

 The population of Wolverhampton has increased more than two- 

 fold since 1750 ; in that year the inhabitants were 7454, in 1801, 

 12,655, in 1811, 14,836, and now considerably exceed that number. 

 The town is surrounded by gardens, and the air generally healthy : 

 a navigable canal from Birmingham passes through it on its eastern 

 side, and joins the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal at Ather- 

 ley. The parish is nominally very large, but, including only so far 

 as its poor-rate extends, it does not exceed four or five square 

 miles, and about 3000 acres : the country around it is well inclosed. 

 The fine and highly-productive tract called Broad-meadows and 

 Whitmore-ends, was, in the sixteenth century, literally a morass. 



Sir Simon Degge says, "this town is pleasantly situated upon a 

 sandy (or rather gravelly) hill, where, upon the Dean Viand, one 

 Richard Best, first a stationer in London, and after a farmer of ex- 

 cise to the Rebels, built a very handsome brick house, and walled 

 about a garden and orchard near the church/' This house is now 

 called the Deanery-hall, and is leased, with the other Deanery 

 estates, to the Earl of Darlington : it is at present occupied by 

 James Hordern, Esq. A little north-west from this, in Tup- 

 street, is a large handsome house, built by the Giffards of Chilling- 



