Bobbington

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Date:1086 - 2015 (c.)

Description:The remote, rural village of Bobbington is situated in the south-west north corner of Staffordshire on the border with Shropshire. The village remained relatively small until there was some development there in the second half of the 20th century.

The name is Anglo-Saxon and means ‘Bubba’s estate’, Bubba being a man’s name and ‘tun’ meaning estate. In the Domesday Book Bobbington is recorded as Bubintone and it was part of the lands of Robert de Stafford. His tenant at Bobbington was named Helgot. The manor consisted then of land sufficient for six plough teams to work and was worth 40s. The population was 12. By the 12th century the village lay within the Forest of Kinver and the pattern of settlement was quite scattered. Much of the eastern part of the village was waste and marshland and by the 15th century, the marshland is recorded as being drained.

Henry III is recorded at being at Bobbington in 1238 and 1245. He passed through the village in 1256 on his way to Bridgenorth when he ordered the sheriff to send four pipes of wine to await his arrival.

In the poll tax of 1327, 17 people were assessed for tax. By 1532-1533, 19 families were recorded in Bobbington. In 1666 by the time of the Hearth Tax assessment, 31 households were recorded in Bobbington with a further 17 listed as being too poor to pay the tax. Three of the largest houses were Bobbington Hall with 12 hearths, Leaton Hall with 12 hearths and Blakelands with nine hearths. However there were also other substantial houses in the village at that time. By the time of the first census in 1801 the population of the village was 381. In 1971 it had risen to only 548.

Bobbington’s parish church is dedicated to Holy Cross. It is mainly built of ashlar. The church was on the site by the 12th century and has a Norman arcade. The chancel was rebuilt in the 14th century and the tower was added before the 16th century. This was replaced by a new tower over the south porch in the restoration work carried out by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1878. There was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel by 1830 on Gospelash Road which later moved to a new building in 1884.

Halfpenny Green airfield, now Wolverhampton airport, is in the parish. It was opened in 1941 as a training station. This resulted in the demolition of some buildings on the dege of the airfield, including the buildings of White Cross School. In 1963 the airfield became used for civilian flying. Prince William of Gloucester was killed in an air crash here in 1972. He is commemorated in the parish church by a memorial tablet and a wrought-iron flower stand, donated in his memory by his mother, Princess Alice.

There was early educational provision in the village with a school established at White Cross in 1792. This was for 20 poor boys and 12 poor girls between the ages of 8 and 15. The school was the benefaction of Hannah and Mary Corbett. A school master and a school mistress were provided for. By the mid 1840s it appears that the school was admitting fee-paying pupils as well as providing for poor children. A new school building was built about 1892. In 1896 the school which was called the Free School of Mary and Hannah Corbett or White Cross School, became a public elementary school. A new school was built in 1957 after the demolition of the old school buildings because of their proximity to the airfield. Between 1944 and 1957 the school was housed in temporary accommodation.

Bobbington remained a farming community until well into the 20th century with a number of agriculturally related trades located in the village. In the early 19th century there were donkey and greyhound races in the parish. The novel, ‘The Curate of Cranston’, written in 1862 by the Revd Edward Bradley, the local vicar, was set in Bobbington.