Fairfield Court stands back on the west side of the Bromsgrove and Stourbridge road, about 5 miles north of the latter town. It is now a farm-house, and until recent years was entirely surrounded by a moat, access to the house being obtained by a drawbridge, but all traces of this have now disappeared and the moat along the north side of the building has been filled in. The principal front of the house, with the porch, faces north and two wings project southward from the rear of the building. To the original house, probably erected early in the 16th century, belong the whole of the east end of the building and the central chimney stack in the middle of the western portion, but most of the remainder of the structure was entirely rebuilt in the early part of the following century and remains in a good state of preservation. In the 18th century the ends of the east wall of the eastern wing were refaced with red brickwork and about the same time the dairy (adjoining the south-west corner of the house) was erected, while the modern work consists of the outhouse at the end of the dairy and various minor alterations.
Belbroughton: Doorway of Bell End Chapel at Bell Hall
The plan of the original house is now a matter of conjecture, but from the disposition of the chimneys it does not seem to have been very dissimilar from the existing arrangement. The projecting porch in the middle of the Jacobean part of the north front opens into a large hall extending in length entirely across the building with windows at both ends. In the centre of the west wall is the old chimney stack, against the south side of which, rising to the first floor and the attics in the roof, is a fine Jacobean staircase of oak. The strings and handrail of the stair are moulded and the balusters turned, while the square newel posts are surmounted by shaped finials of a pleasing design. In an irregular-shaped room on the west of the hall is an original square-headed doorway, still retaining its 17th-century nail-studded door and a blocked-up three-light window. The east wall of the hall marks the division between the 16th and 17th-century work, and to the former belong the two original stacks, built against the external east wall. Round the walls of a room to the east of the hall, known as the 'oak room,' is some late 16th or early 17thcentury panelling, but this is not in situ, though it was no doubt taken from some other part of the house. A partition on the west of the room is likewise made up of 16th-century panelling. It screens off a passage from which the hall is entered. The bedrooms are of little interest; they generally communicate with a passage running along the south side of the building.
¶The exterior of the house is picturesque. The oldest part is of half-timber and brick construction, though this on the south is covered by an 18th-century brick facing. The whole of the old framing is built with horizontal and vertical timbers, the panels being tall and narrow. The first floor on the south side of the east wing overhangs, and is carried on long curved braces projecting from the main uprights at the end of the side walls. The east block is gabled towards the north and south. The northern stack on the east wall is built of stone up to the eaves, but above this point are two square brick chimneys, carried up independently of one another, but joined by an oversailing brick coping at the top. Both chimneys have an angular rib of brickwork carried up each face. The central stack, above the roof, is of the same design, but the coping is modern. The walls of the 17th-century addition are built of red sandstone up to the level of the first floor, while the upper part is of red brick with red sandstone quoins and dressings to the windows. Round the base of the walls is a slightly projecting plinth. All the original windows in this addition are low and divided into lights by sandstone mullions. The windows lighting the hall are, however, higher than the others and transomed. The porch is carried up two stories high and finishes with a pointed gable. The entrance archway is roundheaded, with a slightly projecting keystone and impost blocks. The west end of the house has a pointed gable of half-timber construction, and the south front of the west wing is also gabled. All the roofs are tiled.
MANORS
King Coenwulf in 817 exempted the Bishop of Worcester's estate at 'Beolne, Broctun and Forfeld' from all secular services except military service and the maintenance of bridges and strongholds. His charter implies that the bishop was already in possession of these lands; the means by which he acquired them are unknown. Subsequently the monastery lost these manors and they passed to Earl Leofwin, but his son Leofric promised to restore them to the monks after his death. He died in 1057 'in a good old age, a man of no less virtue than power in his time— religious, prudent and faithful to his country, happily wedded to Godiva, a woman of great praise.' She, on the death of her husband, requested to be allowed to retain the manors for her life, with reversion to the priory, on payment of a money rent. To this the monks agreed, but it is doubtful whether they ever obtained possession of the manors, for shortly afterwards the land was ravaged by Edwin and Morcar, who occupied these manors. Godiva seems, however, to have retained possession of BROUGHTON, for in 1086 2 hides there which she had held belonged to Urse the sheriff. A hide which was held under Urse by Robert in Clent Hundred, following as it does in the Domesday Survey immediately after the entry for Broughton, may refer to land in this neighbourhood. FAIRFIELD (Forteld, ix cent.; Fornelde, xiv cent.) is not separately mentioned in Domesday, but was evidently then included in Broughton, which subsequently became known as the manor of Fairfield or Belbroughton or Belbroughton and Fairfield. To it were appurtenant five salt-pans at Droitwich, which rendered 100 mits of salt and 5 ounces of silver.
This manor passed with Urse's other possessions to the Beauchamps and the overlordship followed the descent of the barony of Elmley. In 1572–3 the manor was said to be held of the queen as of her hundred of Halfshire.
Belbroughton: Fairfield Court from the North-west
The Beauchamps probably held the manor in demesne until the reign of Henry II, when on the marriage of Emma daughter of William de Beauchamp with Ralph de Sudeley the manor was apparently given to Ralph, for his great-grandson Bartholomew de Sudeley, who died in 1280, was said to be holding the manor of William de Beauchamp without service because it was given in free marriage to his ancestors.
Sudeley. Or two bends gules.
The manor passed at Bartholomew's death to his son John, who died in 1336 and was succeeded by his grandson John son of Bartholomew de Sudeley. John died in 1340–1, leaving a son John, but his widow Eleanor held the manor until her death in 1361, when it passed to John. On his death in February 1366–7 he left as his heirs his nephew Thomas Boteler, aged ten years, son of his eldest sister Joan, and his younger sister Margery, aged thirty years. In the following year a partition was made of John de Sudeley's lands, and Fairfield seems to have been assigned to Thomas Boteler. John and William, the two elder sons of Sir Thomas Boteler, died without issue, and Alice wife of Edmund Chesney, who was holding the manor in 1431 and presented to the church in 1422, may have been William's widow, the manor having been settled on William and his wife Alice in 1417–18. The manor afterwards passed to Sir Ralph Boteler of Sudeley, third son of Sir Thomas, who dealt with it in 1464 and 1467–8. Sir Ralph Boteler had an only son Thomas, who died during his father's lifetime, probably between 1449 and 1460, without issue. Sir Ralph died on 2 May 1473 seised of the manor, and, as he left no surviving issue, John Norbury, grandson of his sister Elizabeth, and William Belknap, son of his sister Joan, became joint heirs to his possessions. His wife Alice survived him, dying 10 February 1473–4. On 11 February 1477 Sir John Norbury and William Belknap had licence to enter into possession of the lands of Ralph Boteler of Sudeley, but it does not appear to which of the two Fairfield passed. Probably Sir John Norbury held it, as it is not mentioned in the inquisition taken on the death of William Belknap in 1484. In 1496 a partition took place between Edward Belknap, William's nephew, and Sir John Norbury, and it is interesting to note that the manor which for over two centuries had been known as 'Forfeld' was then called Belbroughton. By this partition it was agreed that Sir John Norbury should hold Belbroughton. In 1500 the manor was secured to Sir John Norbury's daughter and heir Anne wife of Richard Halliwell. From Anne it passed to her daughter Jane, who married Sir Edmund Bray, created Lord Bray in 1529. Lord Bray died in 1539, and Fairfield was held by Jane Lady Bray until her death on 24 October 1558. Her only son John Lord Bray having died without issue in the previous year, her six daughters became her heirs. In 1560–1 they agreed that Edmund Lord Chandos and Dorothy his wife, the fifth daughter, should have the manors of Fairfield, Belbroughton and Broomhill. In 1574 Dorothy, then a widow, jointly with her son Giles Lord Chandos conveyed the manors of Fairfield and Belbroughton to Ann Petre, widow of Sir William Petre, kt., Secretary of State to Henry VIII and Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. Anne left the manors to her daughter Catherine, who married John Talbot of Grafton. John conveyed them in 1595 to Richard Leveson and John Brooke. In 1609 Jane Watson, widow, and Sarah Watson conveyed these manors to Sir Richard Greaves, who held them until his death on 10 July 1632, when his son Thomas Greaves succeeded. In 1641–2 the latter, with Martha his wife, conveyed them to Thomas Rant and Thomas Hammond, who were evidently trustees for William Ward, a wealthy goldsmith of London. Fairfield and Belbroughton were probably included in certain manors unnamed which were conveyed by Thomas Rant and others to William's son Humble, Lord Ward of Birmingham, in 1649. Lord Ward married Frances Lady Dudley, and seems to have settled Fairfield and Belbroughton on his third son William Ward, who was in possession in 1700. John Ward, grandson of William, succeeded to the barony of Ward in 1740 on the death of his cousin, and the manors from that time followed the descent of Dudley Castle (q.v.), William Humble Ward, Earl of Dudley, being the present owner.
Bray, Lord Bray. Argent a cheveron between three eagle's legs sable razed at the thigh.
Chandos, Lord Chandos. Or a pile gules.
¶In the 16th century a 'manor or capital messuage' called Fairfield Court belonged to Henry James, who left four daughters—Elizabeth wife of Humphrey Perrott, Dorothy wife of Henry Greswolde, Martha wife of John Perrott, and Anne. It was agreed in 1596 that the capital messuage should belong to Humphrey Perrott and Elizabeth, and the former was still holding it in 1610.
Tradition says there was once a chapel at Fairfield Court.
Source - https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol3/pp11-19#p18
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