West Bromwich Manor House, Hall Green Road, West Bromwich, B71 2EA, is an important, Grade I listed, medieval domestic building built by the de Marnham family in the late thirteenth century as the centre of their agricultural estate in West Bromwich. Only the Great Hall survives of the original complex of living quarters, agricultural barns, sheds and ponds. Successive occupants modernised and extended the manor house until it was described in 1790 as "a large pile of irregular half-timbered buildings, black and white, and surrounded with numerous out-houses and lofty walls." The building was saved from demolition in the 1950s by West Bromwich Corporation which carried out an extensive and sympathetic restoration of this nationally important building.
Architecture. The Victoria County History of Staffordshire states: “There was a manor-house at West Bromwich by the early 1220s. The oldest part of the present building, however, is the hall, which is thought to date from c. 1300, a time when the Marnhams had a house in West Bromwich. It has two full bays and a short entry bay, marked by a spere truss, at the south end. Presumably it originally extended further at each end to provide both service and private rooms, but they would have been removed in the earlier 15th century when the present cross wings were built. In the late 15th century a chapel, first referred to in 1552, was added at the east end of the north cross wing. The west wall of the hall was rebuilt when the oriel was added at its north end in the 16th century, and the detached kitchen block to the south-west of the service wing is of about the same date. About 1600 a two-storeyed gatehouse range was built to the east of the hall and the service wing was extended to join it. The enclosing moat is probably contemporary with the hall. Most of it was filled in about 1700, although the section in front of the gatehouse had been filled in earlier to make a forecourt."
According to the will of Cecily Stanley in 1552, in the 16th and early 17th centuries, wheat and barley was being grown in the open fields, though in smaller quantities than rye and oats.
Additions and alterations were made to the hall during the 18th century, and in the 1790s it consisted “of a large pile of irregular half-timbered building, black and white, and surrounded with numerous out-houses and lofty walls” In 1823 the hall, with a farm-house, was sold and by 1836 three families were living there, including that of the assistant curate at All Saints' parish church. By the early 1880s the building had been converted into a number of tenements.
In 1950 the property, by then derelict, was bought by the corporation. After much controversy restoration was begun in 1957, and the 18th and 19th additions were removed. In 1961 the building was opened as a restaurant by Ansells Brewery, the tenants of West Bromwich corporation.
It is currently in the care of Sandwell Council which is restoring the building with a view to its becoming a visitor attraction and community venue. It has recently undergone some archaeological excavations.
