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| HER Number: | 13039 |
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| Name: | Goblins Pit |
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Summary
'Goblins Pit' marked in this area on map of 1775. By time of 1st edn OS map of 1884 area is shown as woodland.
Monument Type(s):
- MARL PIT (Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
Description
'Goblins Pit' marked in this area on map of 1775. (1) Gobling's Pit marked on the OS surveyors map 1816, along with two areas of woodland and buildings shown along Green Lane, and another building to the northwest (2). Goblins Pit Wood and Goblins Pit Farm shown on the OS map 1834 (3)
Buildings adjacent to Green Lane annotated Goblins Pit on the Walsall Foreign Tithe map. Long thin plots aligned along Green Lane, also with small buildings, shown to the south of Goblins Pit (4).
By time of 1st edn OS map of 1884 a number of ponds are shown, as is the larger area of woodland on the 1816 map. (5)
Horovitz states in the entry for Hobs Hole that 'hob' has ME origins, meaning sprite, elf, or hobgoblin, and notes that Goblin Pit is similar. He also notes that hobs, sprites and goblins are often associated with pits, holes, and ancient earthworks. (6)
Area is still undeveloped. Rollins says that this is not a coal pit as the coal measures are too deeply buried here and suggests that they are 'Borrow Pits' dug to extract marl to spread on the fields. (7)
Environment Agency Lidar data shows a large oval depression in an area now wooded. (8)
BGS boreholes confirm that the coal here is very deep, and record a band of limestone bedrock inbetween the marl geology in this area, which corresponds to the largest pit shown on the OS 1st Edition, which may indicate these ponds were initially pits to extract limestone (9).
Green Lane (HER13319) may have medieval or earlier origins.
Sources and Further Reading
| [1] | SBL6809 - Map: Yates W. 1775. A map of the county of Staffordshire. 1:63360. |
| [2] | SBL1792 - Map: Ordnance Survey. 1816. Ordnance Survey Surveyor's Map: Black Country. 1:31680. |
| [3] | SBL4711 - Map: 1834. Ordnance Survey 1" survey: Lichfield and Birmingham. 1:63600. |
| [4] | SBL7603 - Map: 1843. Walsall Foreign Tithe Map. |
| [5] | SBL6813 - Map: 1884. Ordnance Survey 25 inch 1st edn Staffordshire 57.16. 1:2500. |
| [6] | SBL7204 - Bibliographic reference: Horovitz, David. 2005. The Place Names of Staffordshire. |
| [7] | SBL4114 - Bibliographic reference: Rollins Brian. 1994. Coal Mining in Walsall Wood, Brownhills and Aldridge. 6. |
| [8] | SBL7541 - Lidar data: Environment Agency (Geomatics Website). 2014. Lidar dataset. |
| [9] | SBL7844 - Website: British Geological Survey. Geology of Britain Viewer. |
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