Edna Handley
20 Apr 2015
Edna taught at Bentley Heath School in the late 1980s and needed local history material for the children’s projects. As the School Log Books had long since been lost, she began researching local records and collecting memories of the elder residents of the district.
William Yates’ 1” map of Warwickshire in 1787 was the first to show Bentley Heath. It was a triangular area of sand/gravel amidst the Mercian mudstone, and was closely linked with Widney whose moated Manor House – mentioned in a deed of 1289 – stood adjacent to the Tellewalle Brook. The latter formed one of its boundaries, the others being the River Blythe and the ‘great road from Longdon to Beaudesert’ (now Brown’s Lane). Moated homes were fashionable and others in the vicinity were Longdon Hall; Manor Farm on Four Ashes Road, the home of the Holbech family; The Chase on Smith’s Lane; Tilecross Lane Farm; and Bentley Farm in Mill Lane (demolished in 1960 – Dorridge Methodist Church now stands on the site).
In 1592 Widney Manor was forfeited to the Crown which, a few years later, granted or sold it to Thomas Holbech (1561-1639) of Manor Farm. William Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) described Widney as ‘an ancient manor, though not a village’. Anthony Holbech (1662-1738) was the last of the family to live at the farm, by then known as Bentley Hall. It was shown on Henry Beighton’s 1” map of Warwickshire in 1725. Anthony married Jane Parsons, whose father was Lord Mayor of London in 1701. Only three of their children survived childhood, including Clapham, the only son, who disgraced himself by climbing St Alphege Church steeple. He left home to become a clerk in the West Africa Company and drowned in quicksands in The Gambia in 1739.
On Anthony’s death the Widney Manor estate was divided between his widow and daughters, Jane and Mary. It began to come together again when Thomas Heydon bought land, and this process was continued by John Smallwood of Handsworth who in 1839 bought out Thomas Heydon. John Stubbs inherited the estate in 1853 and built a new Manor House at Widney Farm at the south west end of Smiths Lane. This was shown on the 2nd Edition of the Ordnance Survey in 1904. The outmoded Bentley Hall reverted to being Manor Farm. A south wing was added to the Tudor building and the whole was covered in plaster. Audrey & John Beamond lived in the house from 1924 to 1943 and the Millers 1943-1972.
John Stubbs died in 1876 and G.F.Muntz bought the estate which was divided by the coming of the railway in 1852. The last occupant of the new Manor House was Joseph Taunton JP who lived there from 1883 until his death in 1921. He supported Bentley Heath School and Mission Church where he met Jane Frances Short, the grand-daughter of Mary Holbech and Rev.Richard Mashiter (Hd.Master of Solihull School). Joseph married her as his third wife in 1908 when she was a spinster of 53. She continued to live at the Manor House until 1928 when there was a fire and the top floor completely gutted. It was removed by the new owner, Geoffrey Bird who farmed the land, and most of it was demolished in 1980.
The original Manor House next to the Tellewalle Brook remained uninhabited for many centuries until John Stubbs decided that the island formed by the moat would be ideal for breeding game birds. A keeper’s lodge was built nearby by 1876, when G.F.Muntz bought the land; on his death in 1898 Herman Schurhoff extended the lodge considerably to be Moat Farm. His daughter Ellen married Charles Martineau, Professor of Mathematics at Birmingham University, and they lived with their six children for 30 years there until 1958, when Mrs Martineau died. The property was bought by John & Barbara Chambers in 1989, who restored the house. Erica Martineau, the eldest daughter, visited them in 1991. The house is now Hogarths Hotel.
Many of the original road names were changed by Solihull Council in the 1930s. Blythe Lane became Widney Manor Road, Tile Cross Lane became Browns Lane, Rotten Row Road became Widney Road, and Bentley Heath Road became Mill Road. Over the years Widney has had three manor houses – the moated one beside the Tellewalle Brook mentioned in the 1289 deed; Manor Farm/Bentley Hall from the 1590s owned by the Holbeches; and Widney Farm/The Manor House from 1853 to 1928.