page_title: Brewood
section_title: Development of a town
hierarchical_section_title: Brewood / History / Development of a town
caption_attribution_description: English: Market Place, historic centre of Brewood, Staffordshire, England.
context_page_description: Brewood is an ancient market town and civil parish in South Staffordshire, England. Located around grid reference SJ883088, Brewood lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton city centre and eleven miles south of the county town of Stafford. Some three miles to the west of Brewood is the border with the county of Shropshire.
context_section_description: Norman rule brought Forest Law to the area, and it was not until 1204, in the reign of King John, that Brewood Forest was abolished. A forest was a royal hunting reserve, not necessarily wooded. The area of the parish to the east of the Penk was not part of Brewood Forest, but belonged to the Forest of Cank or Cannock Chase. It was not deforested until about a century later.
  Shortly after deforestation, in 1221, a charter for a Friday market at Brewood was granted to the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield by King Henry III, suggesting considerable growth and increased prosperity since the Domesday survey. However, the charter was valid only until the seniority of the king, who was a child at the time. The market continued, nevertheless, and the king recognised a Monday market too in 1259, as well as granting the right to hold an annual fair over the feast of the Nativity of Mary, or 7–9 September, although it was transferred to 19 September after the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in the 18th century. In 1382 the burgesses of Stafford tried to get Brewood's markets suppressed, claiming that they had been unlicensed for twenty years and injured their trade. However, Stafford lost to Brewood and both market and fair were confirmed some time around 1390, in the reign of Richard II. The market petered out during the 18th century, and competition from Wolverhampton killed off an attempted revival in the following century. Although a general fair, the most important trade at the annual event was in horses. It continued until after World War I.
  From the mid-12th century, two religious communities of women developed in the Brewood area. The priory of St Mary, Brewood, generally known as Blackladies, was a Benedictine house, to the west of the village. It owned land and property around Brewood, and elsewhere in Staffordshire and Shropshire. The nuns petitioned Pope Gregory IX (1227–41) for protection, and he confirmed them in all their present and future holdings. He conferred the right to elect their own prioress and decreed that their flocks and herds were to be free of tithes. However, the nuns seems to have struggled financially, and they often solicited small gifts of cash from notables and even from kings. For example, in 1241 Henry III sent a gift of one mark so that they could redeem their pawned chalice. Even more telling was an incident of 1286. About ten years previously, a stag had escaped from the royal huntsman in Gailey Hay (then part of the forest of Cannock) and subsequently drowned in Blackladies' fishpond. The nuns split the carcass with John Giffard of Chillington. When the case came to court, Giffard received a fine and a prison sentence but the nuns were pardoned because of their poverty. However, there were criticisms of the financial management at the priory. In 1326, Roger Northburgh, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, made a visitation and demanded that the prioress present proper accounts, which she seemed unable to do, and that the cellaress and steward be dismissed. It seems that the community was always very small, and as dissolution approached it never numbered above four, although with a number of lay staff.
  White Ladies Priory was an Augustinian house It was situated in an extra-parochial area adjoining Brewood parish to the west, and allocated to Shropshire, but it was generally styled the priory or convent of St Leonard of Brewood. The complement here was also small: generally five canonesses and the prioress. It too was poor and had scattered holdings in Shropshire, and even in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Nevertheless, a visitation of 1338 by the zealous Bishop Northburgh led to censure of the prioress for her extravagant dress and for her hunting with hounds. Both White Ladies and Blackladies were suppressed in the first wave of the Dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and their buildings and local estates ended up in the hands of the Giffard family.
  Around the same time that the market was established, building of the large sandstone church of St Mary and St Chad was commenced
caption: The Market Place in 2011.
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