n original, and were
erected between the fourth and the tenth century; that of St. Martin's
is ancient beyond the reach of historical knowledge, and probably rose
in the early reigns of the Saxon kings.

It was the custom of those times, to place the church, if there was but
one, out of the precincts of the town; this is visible at the present
day in those places which have received no increase.

Perhaps it will not be an unreasonable supposition to fix the erection
of St. Martin's, in the eighth century; and if the inquisitive reader
chooses to traverse the town a second time, he may find its boundaries
something like the following. We cannot allow its extension northward
beyond the east end of New-street; that it included the narrow parts of
Philip street, Bell street, Spiceal street, Moor street, and Park
street. That the houses at this period were more compact than
heretofore; that Digbeth and Deritend, lying in the road to Stratford,
Warwick, and Coventry, all places of antiquity, were now formed. Thus
the church stood in the environs of the town, unincumbered with
buildings. Possibly this famous nursery of arts might, by this time,
produce six hundred houses. A town must increase before its appendages
are formed; those appendages also must increase before there is a
necessity for an additional chapel, and after that increase, the
inhabitants may wait long before that necessity is removed. Deritend is
an appendage to Birmingham; the inhabitants of this hamlet having long
laboured under the inconveniency of being remote from the parish church
of Aston, and too numerous for admission into that of Birmingham,
procured a grant in 1381 to erect a chapel of their own. If we,
therefore, allow three hundred years for the infancy of Deritend, three
hundred more for her maturity, and four hundred since the erection of
her chapel, which is a very reasonable allowance. It will bring us to
the time I mentioned.

It does not appear that Deritend was attended with any considerable
augmentation, from the Norman conquest to the year 1767, when a
turnpike-road was opened to Alcester, and when Henry Bradford publicly
offered a freehold to the man who should first build upon his estate;
since which time Deritend has made a rapid progress: and this dusky
offspring of Birmingham is now travelling apace along her new
formed road.

I must again recline upon Dugdale.--In 1309, William de Birmingham, Lord
of the Manor, took a distress