Tandy's Lane
I have for long been interested in names
of places and their origins and one local name that has excited my interest is
Tandy's Lane.
Two questions need an answer. Firstly,
why Tandy's? Secondly, why does the road vary so much along its length from
Woodrow Lane to the Birmingham road?
I have had to guess at the answer to the
first question.
The far end of the road, apart from being very attractive, is very narrow and is
lower than the surrounding fields. This section is shown on a map of 1745 as
leading from the present A450 to a noticeable sharp left hand corner where there
was a house, and only this part was called Tandy's Lane.
In fact the name goes back at least 200 years before then. I have found in the
Manor Court records of Henry VIIIs time, which some kind souls have translated
for the Local History Society, reference to a house and a few acres ('a messuage
and half a yardland') and it is called Tandys.
I conclude that in the 16th century and probably earlier that part of the modem
lane was the approach to a house occupied by a Mr.Tandy. Of course it later
became a section of what was probably a muddy track leading up from the village
via the Holloway and thence to Barnett Common and on eventually to Stourbridge.
The second question can be answered much
more precisely.
The southern, Woodrow Lane, end led in the 18th century through woods, Taylors
Wood, Mill Wood, Hellum Lye Wood and Lower Vicarage Wood.
In 1799 a Commission was looking at amongst other things the road system of the
parish. It declared that a public carriageway should lead from Woodrow Lane,
through the woods and across what was then the edge of Hillpool Common down to
the end of the Tandy's Lane I have just described. This stretch was given a
separate name, but that is of no significance, as sooner or later the whole
stretch was integrated.
Of greater interest was that the woods were later cut down by the owner and it
was he who had to fence it and look after the new road. The width of the road
was ordained to be 40 feet across and this accounts for the attractive verges
that we now see.
Robin Palmer
