Distance: 1.1 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route via: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
How to walk to Bromwich Hall, West Bromwich’s ancient manor house and one of the oldest (and supposedly most haunted) buildings in West Midlands from Tame Bridge Parkway Station.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
West Midlands Most Haunted
Situated right in the heart of the Black Country, Bromwich Hall in Friar Park between West Bromwich and Wednesbury is one of West Midlands county’s oldest buildings.
The most ancient parts of the current building date back to around 1270 when the manor of West Bromwich was held by the Marnham family. Though it is known that there was a West Bromwich Manor House on the site, at least as early as 1220, so it may be far older.
Bromwich Hall is a slight, but surprisingly sprawling, wooden framed building, set back from the road amidst inter-war semis. Today the building is a museum and events venue managed by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. However, for most of its recent history the building was operated as a pub by Ansell’s Brewery. The building was considered quaint even in the 18th Century, with an account from 1790 “a large pile of irregular half-timbered buildings, black and white, and surrounded with numerous out-houses and lofty walls”.
This ancient and ramshackle structure endured throughout the crash industrialisation of the Black Country in the 18th and 19th Century, the Tame Valley Canal passes due north of the site. It also survived the development of Friar Park between the First and Second World Wars and in the immediate postwar era.
The property had long since ceased to to be West Bromwich’s premier address. By the mid-20th Century Bromwich Hall had been divided up into a warren of tenements for generations. In the 1950s West Bromwich Corporation proposed to demolish the building as part of their slum clearance programme. Instead, the building’s heritage value was recognised and the council resolved to purchase, renovate and preserve the building instead. It was after this that the building was let to Ansell’s in 1961 as a pub.
Unsurprisingly, given it is one of the West Midlands oldest buildings, Bromwich Hall is also one of the county’s most haunted. Given its age, and also the important role the building played for hundreds of years as a centre for the feudal administration of West Bromwich, this resonance and the sense of traces from this past is perhaps unsurprising.
Indeed, one surviving fragment from 1293 in the late 13th Century appears to indicate that there was a murder there:
“that Nicholas son of Richard de Marnham and Bertram son of Richard were sitting and drinking together with others at the house of Agnes the weaver of Bromwych in Bromwych in the dusk of the evening, and contumelious words [humiliating insults] were used between them, and the said Bertram, who was the younger and humble, out of respect for Nicholas, got up and left the house of Agnes in order to avoid the malice of Nicholas, who was very malicious; and Nicholas being irritated at this, got up and followed him with a long knife drawn in his hand, and Bertram ran away between two high hedges as far as the door of Richard de Marnham in that town; and the door was closed so that he could not enter the house, nor could he climb over the hedges because of their height, and he could not evade Nicholas except by defending himself. In self defence he struck Nicholas with his sword on the head and in the breast. He is therefore to be given up to the Bishop as not guilty.”
-Source is here, note that I have rendered the translation into consistently modern English.
Perhaps this incident accounts for the apparition of a black-bearded man who stands and stares out the windows of the manor house’s chapel? Or it may also be the reason why a ghost in medieval garb has been seen gliding through the medieval toilets. But whether this spirit is Nicholas, Richard, Agnes “the Weaver of Bromwych” or somebody else entirely is unclear.
However, far more creepily the most frequently reported ghost in Bromwich Hall is linked to a room which is known to have been sealed up for many years. Ever since the room was unsealed the ghostly apparition of a young woman has often been seen there. Though purportedly this particular ghost had not been seen for around thirty years until she began appearing again very recently…
As with the spectral goings on around the former Warwickshire site of execution and grisly display of the corpses of the dead at Gibbet Hill in Coventry, it is entirely possible the alcohol plays a role in some of these sightings. Especially during the period between the early 1960s and late 2000s when Bromwich Hall was a pub. However, given that the sightings continue now that the building has been put to more sober, civic purposes once more, what living person truly knows?
The Walk
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
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This walk to Bromwich Hall, West Bromwich’s ancient manor house and one of the oldest (and supposedly most haunted) buildings in West Midlands county, begins from Tame Bridge Parkway Station.
Whether arriving from the direction of Walsall or Birmingham, exit the station and follow a ramp up towards the Walsall Road running just north of the station, connecting West Bromwich with Walsall.
Once on Walsall Road turn left and walk a short distance along the road past a bus stop.
Soon you come to a bridge across the incredibly straight Tame Valley Canal. Here off to the left there is a steep path which you can walk down to reach the canal cut.
Once on the canal towpath turn right and head beneath a modern road bridge made from concrete heading underneath another older brick one (for fans of niche 1990s anarcho-rap songs, this is the bridge which features in the video for frequent Chumbawamba collaborators Credit to the Nation, who filmed the video for their song “Sowing the Seeds of Hatred” in Friar Park).
Walk along the towpath for some distance following the line of the deep cut.
Presently off on your right there is a flight of steps. Turn right and climb up them.
At the top there is a little park area which you cross heading towards some of the distinctive inter-war semi-detached and terraced houses that characterise the Friar Park estate.
Upon reaching a residential road on the far side of the park turn left.
Walk along the residential road for a short distance until you reach a larger road.
Upon reaching the larger road turn left again and walk up the road past some shops for some distance.
Soon you reach a pelican crossing. Here, cross the road, then turn left.
Soon you reach a small parade of shops. Here, turn right and walk a short distance down the road back into a residential area.
Almost immediately on the right you see the black and white timbers of Bromwich Hall set back from the road amidst a park-like landscape.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Having visited Bromwich Hall it is pretty straightforward to retrace your footsteps to Tame Bridge Parkway Railway Station for frequent trains to Walsall, north towards Rugley, and south towards Birmingham and beyond. Or alternatively the 40 bus (at the time writing in October 2023) provided a frequent service between Wednesbury and West Bromwich from bus stops near the roundabout surrounded by shops which you passed to reach the Hall.