Trysull is a rural village in the county of Staffordshire, England approximately five miles south-west of Wolverhampton. With the adjacent village of Seisdon, it forms the civil parish of Trysull and Seisdon, within the South Staffordshire non-metropolitan district. Until 1974 it formed part of Seisdon Rural District. The 2011 census recorded a usually resident population for the parish of Trysull & Seisdon of 1,150 persons in 455 households.
The village has not been greatly affected by over-modern development and still retains many of the old country cottages, houses and a manor house.
Toponymy In 1086 the village name appears in the Domesday Book as Treslei. One of the families who subsequently occupied the estate were styled de Tressell.
The name appears to mean "the settlement in the clearing", deriving from the Welsh prefix tre settlement and the suffix leah a woodland clearing. The next significant placename to the north is Trescott, where the suffix cott means small building or cottage.
Ogilby's strip road map c1675 shows the spelling Tressell.
Yates' map of Staffordshire, from 1775, shows the spelling Treosle.
Topography and geology The village of Trysull lies almost entirely within the shallow valley of the Smestow Brook, flanked either side by low sandstone ridges running north-south.
The Smestow itself created neither of these features: it simply flows through a landscape opened up by glaciation in the last Ice Age. A thin mantle of glacial drift covers the bedrock and consists of patches of clay, silt and pebble beds. Also present are scattered granite boulders originating either in Southern Scotland or North Wales.
History
Early history No archaeological evidence of pre-Saxon permanent occupation has been discovered although remains of Roman origin are found only 3 miles downstrean at Greensforge and Ashwood.
The feudal estates of Trysull and the nearby village of Seisdon are Anglo-Saxon in origin and lay within the Seisdon Hundred. This administrative body met in the open, probably in the fields known as the "Musters". The estates were held by the Saxon Turgot immediately prior to the Conquest. For much of its history, as today, Trysull and Seisdon jointly formed a parish. The earliest recorded evidence for Trysull is an entry in the Domesday Book of 1086. A contemporary reworking of the original text records that:
William holds 2 hides (about 240 acres) in Trysull and Baldwin holds it from him. Tirgot held it, with full jurisdiction, he was a freeman. Land for 3 ploughs. In the estate 2 ploughs, 5 slaves, 4 villagers and 1 small holder with 2 ploughs. A mill valued at 4 shillings and 4 acres of meadow. The value was and is now 30 shillings.
Following the Norman Conquest the two estates were held "in captive" by William Fitz Ansculf and subsequently tenanted by local families. Sub-tenants were at first styled Frankley or Bradley, and later Tressell, from the name of the village. A fair and a market were granted by Henry III in 1251 to Thomas de Tressell. By 1396 the manor had passed to the Lowes, lords of Whittington (Worcestershire). By 1557 it had passed to Thomas Grey of Enville, who bought the neighbouring village of Seisdon in that year. The estate was bought by Sir Hugh Wrottesley in 1633, the ownership passed slowly into other hands, the last portion being sold in 1929.
Various mediaeval routes can still be seen in the village. Both the track, Church Lane, from Trysull to Seisdon, and the green lane track, which backs on to various properties in the village centre, have evidence of long term use. Others, like Trysull Holloway, have been built over and are in modern-day use, but both their curving routes and some historic (possibly mediaeval) stone walling systems indicate ancient origins. The indirect routes taken suggest the need to bypass long-demolished mediaeval buildings no longer visible above ground.
The open field system of farming ended in Trysull by mid-17th century following the Trysull and Seisdon Inclosure Act 1773 (13 Geo. 3. c. 103 ) and the exchange of common pasture with the Vicar of Wombourne in lieu of hay tithe.
Turnpike The road along the southern boundary of the village was operated by the Dudley and New Inn Turnpike Trust from 1790. There was a toll house, toll gate and a turnpike gatekeeper at Smestow Gate, with a side-bar to Trysull and Seisdon. The turnpike ran from Dudley, Worcestershire to New Inn, Monmouthshire. The Local Government Act 1888 gave responsibility for maintaining main roads to the Staffordshire County Council. This section of the road is now the B4176.
Railway Large-scale Victorian industrial development largely by-passed the village. The Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal passed about a quarter of a mile to the east of the parish boundary. However, it could have been very different if plans by the Welch and Midland Counties Junction Railways had come to fruition. In The London Gazette of 25 November 1862 a notice appeared announcing the intention to apply for an Act of Parliament to build and maintain a railway between the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway at Craven Arms, the West Midland and South Staffordshire Railways at Dudley and Wolverhampton. Three sections of the line would have been:
No. 2. A railway, commencing in the said parish of Oldbury, from and out of the intended railway No. 1, at or near the termination of that railway, as before described, and terminating in the parish of Trysull, in the county of Stafford, at a point in the centre of the public highway leading from the Dudley and New Inn turnpike road at Smestow toll gate to Seisdon, situate 135 yards or thereabouts from the tollhouse at the said tollgate, measuring in a northerly direction along the said highway.No. 3. A railway, commencing in the said parish of Trysull, from and out of the said intended Railway No. 2, at or near the termination of that railway as before described, and terminating in the parish of Dudley, in the county of Worcester, at or near Scot's-green, at a point in the centre of the Dudley and Brettell-lane turnpike-road, situate 33 yards or thereabouts from the weighing machine in the said road belonging to the Right Honourable the Earl of Dudley, and occupied by his lordship.No. 7. A railway, commencing in the parish of Trysull, in the. county of Stafford, from and out of the said intended Railway No. 2, at or near the termination of that railway and the commencement of the said intended Railway No. 3, as before respectively described, and terminating in the parish of Sedgley, in the same county, by a junction with the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Stour Valley Railway, about 10 yards to the south-east of the point where such last-mentioned railway is carried over the turnpike-road leading from Goldthorn-hill to Bilston, and near to Ettingshall-road and Bilston Station, on such last-mentioned railway.
Similarly, the Central Wales and Staffordshire Junction Railway (1864) and the Bridgnorth, Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Railway (1865) also planned to link main line Shropshire and Black Country networks via the Smestow Valley at Trysull.
Mander family The architectural character of the historic centre of the village was significantly influenced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the activities and benefaction of Benjamin Howard Mander, who bought the Manor House in 1894 and lived there until his death in 1912. His widow Lilian continued to reside in Trysull until her own death in 1952.Varnished Leaves: a biography of the Mander Family of Wolverhampton 1750-1950, Nicholas Mander, published: Owlpen Press, 2004
The considerable wealth of the Mander family began to grow following the migration of Thomas Mander from the family’s farmland on the Warwickshire-Worcestershire border to the market town of Wolverhampton in the mid-1700s. By 1845, Mander Brothers had become a formidable industrial force in the area with a range of chemical and industrial businesses. The success of their paint and varnish business in the second half of the 19th century earned them a national reputation. The family were noted non-conformists, major philanthropists and local benefactors, and were regarded by their contemporaries as being progressive and public spirited.
The Mander family, including Howard, were strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. They were responsible for building two great Arts and Crafts houses in the area, Wightwick Manor of 1889–93 on the western edge of Wolverhampton for Theodore Mander and The Mount at Tettenhall Wood in 1891 and 1908 for Sir Charles Tertius Mander. Immediately after his purchase of Trysull Manor House in 1894, Howard Mander commenced to remodel the house, dating to 1637, employing the architect Frank Worthington Simon and transforming it into an exemplar for the Arts and Crafts movement. By 1900, or soon after, he had endowed the village with an institute (now The Thatchers) complete with a billiards room and library. It was lost to the people of the village when the deed of gift was lost or misplaced. He also built neighbouring housing along Trysull Holloway and the fine Manor Farm. He influenced the design of the new school building in 1896, although he was not its principal benefactor.
20th century The two 11th-century hamlets grew slowly; until prior to 1914 the parish was self-contained with a parish church, church hall, public houses, shops, a bakery, two post offices, two corn mills, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, boot and shoe makers, friendly societies, a sprinkling of professional people and a few "gentry".
There were several small charities for the relief of the poor, now merged into the Thomas Rudge Educational Trust and the Parish Charity.
The historic centre of Trysull was designated a Conservation Area in December 1969 by Staffordshire County Council. A more comprehensive study was made in December 2003 and January 2004 for South Staffordshire Council. This was published in an appraisal of the existing Conservation Area with recommendations for the future, in March 2004. After consideration and consultation a revised village Conservation Area, with its own detailed Management Plan and Appraisal was published. This was designated on 11 November 2010 and the changed boundary and Management Plan came into immediate effect. It was also felt appropriate to conjoin portions of Seisdon to the revised original areas. Both hamlets have strong historic and administrative links with their neighbour and are joined to them by a specially designated Buffer Zone.
Parish Church The Parish Church, All Saints, is a small ancient edifice. It is known that a church has stood on the present site for over 1000 years.
The Tower is one of the oldest parts of the church dating from the 12th century. It was heightened and buttressed in the 15th century. The tower had extensive work undertaken on it in 1897 by specialist builders F.W. Simon of Edinburgh, to a design by the same architect that designed the school. The works included a new porch. Above the round tower arch at the west end of the nave area are The Royal Arms Of George III. Following the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 it was made compulsory to display the arms of the reigning monarch in all parish churches. During the 19th century the practice was discontinued.
On the outside of the north wall is an ancient doorhead, now blocked off. It is possible that it is Norman and has been re-sited when the north aisle was widened. It was in use until the late 19th century.