KING'S NORTON - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868

"KING'S NORTON, a parish and town in the upper division of the hundred of Halfshire, county Worcester, 5 miles S. by W. of Birmingham. The parish includes the town of its own name, and the chapelries of Moseley and Wythall. It received the grant of a market from James I., but this has for many years been discontinued. Some of the inhabitants are employed in the manufacture of nails. The parish is intersected by the line of the Birmingham and Gloucester railway, and by the Birmingham and Worcester canal, which here forms a junction with that of Stratford-on-Avon, and passes through a tunnel of 2 miles into the parish of Alvechurch.

An Act was passed in 1840 for establishing a court of requests here. Norton is also the head of a Poor-law Union, comprising five parishes, of which three, viz: Beoley, King's Norton, and Northfield, are in Worcestershire, Harborne in Staffordshire, and Edgbaston in Warwickshire. It is likewise the seat of a superintendent registry, but is included in the Birmingham new county, court district. The living is a perpetual curacy* [the asterisk denotes that there is a parsonage and glebe belonging to the living] in the diocese of Worcester, value £270, in the patronage of the dean and chapter.

The church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is a spacious structure, rebuilt in 1750 for £20,000, defrayed by Mrs. Fobrey. It has a tower, surmounted by a lofty spire, which has been twice shattered by lightning, first in February, 1843, and again on the 13th May, 1850. There is a free grammar school, endowed by Edward VI., with about £15 per annum. The parochial charities consist of several small bequests for the poor, producing together about £100 per annum. Hawkesley House, the seat of the Middlemores, was besieged and burnt by the Royalists in 1645. Fairs are held on the 25th April and 5th September.

"WYTHALL, a chapelry in the parish of King's Norton, county Worcester, 7 miles S. of Birmingham, and 3 S.E. of King's Norton. The chapel-of-ease is dedicated to St. Mary."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]