MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
177 
again in the reign of Edgar the peaceful, who founded it afresh in or 
about 963, after the direful sacking of the town by Anlaf, and 
consecrated it to his beatified aunt Editha. 
Between 975 and 1016 we find it recorded that there was a 
monastery at Tamworth, A Royal Mint existed here from the time of 
Offa. Ending describes a penny of Edward the Martyr bearing the 
name of the town abbreviated to “ Tanwo.,” and here I may fitly 
quote Bartlett, who in his Manduessedum Romanorum, page 19, says 
“ In the year 781 Offa issued a charter to the monks of Worcester, 
dated from his Royal Palace at Tamworth.” 
At Kingsbury, also a royal seat, Burtwulf held in 851 a grand 
Baronial Council, at which were present the temporal Barons, the 
Pope’s Legate, one Archbishop, six Bishops, and three Abbots. 
And he adds “ we may conclude that as Tamworth was at that 
time the Mercian capital, and as all these Princes coined money, and 
some in large quantities, that certainly a mint was established in this 
town.” 
A discovery of coins which created considerable sensation at the 
time was made in Tamworth in 1876, on the site of the board school 
and just within the ancient earthworks, amongst which were thirty- 
three Tamworth specimens of William I. and II., bearing the 
minters’ names—viz., Brunic and Coline, 
BRVNIE ON TAIVP, 
EVLINE ON TAIVP, 
whilst in the reign of Canute, who died in 1035, coins were issued by 
a moneyer of Tamworth, stamped Edric on Tam. 
We now pass on to 1066, when William the Conqueror took 
possession of the country and rewarded his nobles by presenting them 
with the captured districts, amongst them was Robert le Marmion, 
Lord of Eontenaye, near Caen, who received for his share lands in 
Warwick, Leicester, and Lincoln, comprising the Castle of Tamworth, 
with the lands round about, which included Polesworth and 
Stipershill, the rising ground adjacent, on which was held the 
three weeks’ court leet of the lords of Tamworth Castle. 
Sir Robert Marmion soon after expelled the nuns from Polesworth 
and forced them to take refuge in a cell close to Oldbury, but, con¬ 
science-stricken, dreamt a dream, in which the saintly Edith appeared 
at his bed side and struck him with her crozier ; repenting his haste 
he rode over to Oldbury and escorted them back with all honour, 
stipulating only that he should have burial within the chapter house of 
the Abbey. 
Round about the Polesworth side of Tamworth we find a con¬ 
siderable number of localities associated with the ecclesiastics. On the 
right hand side of the Amington Road, immediately after the first 
canal bridge is passed, is the only remaining portion, some half mile 
in length, of a raise.! and paved monk’s walk, or pack-horse road 
this has been considerably reduced at the Amington end within my 
