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CHAPTER THREE – MEMORIES OF CODSALL WOOD

On Sunday morning horse-drawn brakes full of men would come up into Codsall Wood. They went to the pubs there and perhaps, further on, to the Bradford Arms. At Codsall Wood there was Mr Brindley's house, Westholme, where his wife provided accommodation for visitors from the Black Country. One family who went to stay with her, later built a house called Gleneden on Histons Hill opposite the Methodist Church.
    The Dangerfields stayed with the Brindley's too, then they had a cottage in Codsall Wood before they went to live on Histons Hill. Mr Brindley lived to a great age. He had a brougham and a waggonette and you could hire him to take you down to the station, or, if you had visitors coming, he would meet them for you. He also ran a carrier service to Wolverhampton. The other carrier was Mr Alcock, father of the coal merchant.
    We sometimes went for country rides to Tong or Boscobel in the waggonette. Besides his carrier business Mr. Brindley also kept two milking cows and rented at least two fields (on either side of Cross Guns Inn and now built on) from Chillington. The milk was sold to people who came to the house as he had no milk-round. He had a large garden at the back of his house and another garden across the road. These were used for small-scale market gardening, the produce being taken to Wolverhampton market.
    On the gable-end of his stables near the road were the words GOOD STABLING, indicating that visitors’ horses could be accommodated. He used to tell rather a ‘tall’ story – he was haymaking one day when his pikel (a two pronged hay fork, with very pointed prongs) was struck by lightning – it was torn from his hands and landed upright in the ground, held by its prongs.

APPLES AND DAMSONS
The carriers in the area used to do a good trade in the Autumn taking pots of fruit into the market in Wolverhampton. They would drop off the pots and collect them when they were full. The pots were wicker baskets which held several pounds of fruit, the quantity known as a pot. This was a very big damson area and almost everyone had damson trees in their garden. It was usually the children's job to collect the fruit ready for the carrier.

HERB GATHERING
When I lived in Codsall Wood I remember gangs of women coming through the village in the morning and going back through it later in the day laden with great sheets full of herbs which they carried on their backs. This was before the days of the buses and I don't think they went on the train so they must have walked out from Wolverhampton and walked back again at the end of the day. These were the herb women, who used to go into the country and collect herbs for the herbalists. There was one on Snow Hill and another in Piper's Row. The hedgerows were full of plants and there was no traffic or pollution to worry about. This must have been about 1918 to 1920 that I remember this happening. In Spring and Summer there were wild flowers in the hedgerows and the hayfields. The verges on Pendrell Hill in Spring were full of dog violets, wood anemones, speedwell and white stitchwort. In Summer, on the Wheatstone side of the road, were masses of bird's foot trefoil and the lovely light, yellow flowers of mouse-ear-hawkweed. In the hay meadows were a variety of clovers and vetches, and also yellow rattle and ragged robin – now quite scarce.

CODSALL WOOD CHURCH
The Church was a small, plain red-brick building. It had a turret with a bell. Once a month the vicar came to take Evensong and Communion. His Services were supplemented by a young man from St