Siege of Rushall Hall
Who Fought
History & Significance
Rushall is a historic village in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands county of England. It is centred on the main road between Walsall and Lichfield. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book but has mostly developed since the 1920s. Rushall was historically a part of the county of Staffordshire before it was incorporated with much of the old Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District into the modern-day Walsall district.
The first record of Rushall occurs in Domesday Book (1086), where its total annual value to its lord was assessed as 10 shillings, from a village of eight households and a mill. The name means "a place in the marshy ground where rushes grow". Early settlement by the Saxons probably started to the north of Rushall Hall, where there are remains of a moated site: 19th-century excavations found Saxon coins in earthworks in that area. The feudal lordship did not originally have a parish church. The first mention of a place of worship in 1220 describes it as a chapel of Walsall. However, the lords of Rushall secured the chapel's parish status, and in 1440, John Harpur rebuilt Rushall Church on the chapel site next to his manor house. This survived the English Civil War, to be rebuilt in 1854–1866. The old square tower of the house remained until 1867. The remains at Rushall Hall are a scheduled ancient monument.
In 1951 the civil parish had a population of 4794. On 1 April 1966 the parish was abolished to form Aldridge Brownhills, part also went to Walsall.
in Rushall is the ruins of the ancient manor house, which during the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War was strongly fortified and defended by a numerous garrison. During the latter, a Mr Pitt of Wolverhampton attempted to bribe Captain Tuthill to betray the garrison of Rushall, but his treachery was discovered, and he suffered death for it in 1640. Rushall Hall, a modern house, has been built near the ruins.
The manor anciently belonged to the family of Bowles and passed, via Sir William Grobbere, to the Harpurs, one of whom, John Harpur Esq, endowed the vicarage, and rebuilt the church in about 1444. Early in the 17th century, the manor devolved to the Leighs, from whom it passed to the Very Rev Edward Mellish, Dean of Hereford, whose executors, W. and G. Mellish, B. Gurdon and W. Tritton became the principal proprietors and lords of the manor.
Rushall Hall today is mainly a 19th-century structure, incorporating walls from an earlier building. At the time the massive surviving, fortified gatehouse and walls were built in the 13th and 14th centuries, the house itself was probably made of timber. The Leigh family succeeded the Harpurs in the mid-16th century and took a lead in county politics. At the start of the Civil War in 1642, Sir Edward Leigh was an MP and an opponent of the King. He fortified Rushall Hall and joined the Parliamentary Army, being appointed a colonel. His wife, left in command at Rushall, could not hold the Hall against the forces of Prince Rupert in 1643. The Royalists in their turn were ejected after a short siege in 1644. Sir Edward Leigh's younger son was the metaphysical poet Richard Leigh. During the 18th century, the Leighs became absentees, as were their successors, the Mellish and Buchanan families. Limestone of high quality lies near the surface at Rushall. It was exploited by the Romans and through the Middle Ages for building and agricultural purposes. The use of limestone as a flux for smelting iron caused great expansion in mining during the Industrial Revolution. A new settlement grew up at Daw End, and the Hay Head and Linley workings were both on a large scale. The quarries in Rushall Hall's park flooded to become the Park Lime Pits – today a nature reserve. The Arboretum lakes, then also in Rushall, were similarly formed by quarrying.
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Rushall Hall lies on Warwickshire Group, bedrock that formed in the Early Permian. The rock here is siltstone and sandstone with subordinate mudstone.
Following Prince Rupert's capture of Rushall Hall in 1643, the Royalists garrisoned the ancient fortified manor house, but they were ejected after a short siege in 1644, with the hall reverting to Parliamentary hands; the sources note that the Hall's massive gatehouse and walls, built in the 13th and 14th centuries, formed the core of its defences throughout the conflict.
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