Halesowen is recorded in the
Domesday Book of 1086 as being larger than
Birmingham. The manor and town was known as
Hala (from the
Anglo-Saxon word "
halh", meaning nook or remote valley), until it was given by
King Henry II to
Welsh Prince Dafydd ab Owain in 1177 and became known as
Halas Owen. The
parish of Halesowen, which incorporated other
townships later to become independent parishes, was an
exclave of the county of
Shropshire, but grew to become a town and was transferred to the jurisdiction of
Worcestershire by the
Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844. Included in the boundaries was the ancient village of
Brettle. Halesowen appears on censuses and maps into the nineteenth century also as Hales Owen. In the 1220s, Halesowen had a market and fair and, by 1270, it had been granted a charter of liberties by its lord, the
Premonstratensian Abbey of Halesowen. By 1300, it is estimated that the population was around 600. The
court rolls for Halesowen survive from 1272 and show that the majority of migrants to Halesowen in the 14th century were women at 75%. Little was done to remove them and many went on to become small retailers in the area. The village is well known by medieval historians for the conflict that took place around this time. In 1279, as the Abbot attempted to increase labour services for his tenants (which had been fixed in 1244), the peasants attempted to plead their case in the King's Court, a privilege forbidden to unfree
villeins. The Abbot thus fined them £10 which was a large sum at the time, and resistance, led by Roger Ketel, heightened. The conflict was snuffed out in 1282 as Ketel and Alice Edrich (the pregnant wife of another prominent rebel) were murdered by thugs hired by the abbey. During the 18th century Halesowen developed rapidly as a result of the
Industrial Revolution. The manufacture of nails was the staple trade in the town and many mills were used for slitting and iron production. Coal had been mined in the area from at least the reign of
Edward I. Halesowen became the centre of a
poor law union in the 19th century, which later became established as a
rural sanitary district and later the
Halesowen Rural District in 1894.
Oldbury was included into the area of Halesowen under the
Halesowen Inclosure Act 1829 (
10 Geo. 4. c.
25 ). With increasing urbanisation of the area, in the early 20th century, it became the Halesowen Urban District in 1925, and obtained a grant of charter to become a
municipal borough in 1936. In 1974, under the
Local Government Act 1972, Halesowen was incorporated into the new
Dudley Metropolitan Borough, in the Metropolitan county of the
West Midlands. Halesowen was once served by a railway line – in reality two lines which met at an end-on junction at the station. The first was a branch of the
Great Western Railway from
Old Hill to Halesowen, opened in 1878, followed in 1883 by a section jointly owned by the Great Western and the
Midland Railway (though worked mostly by the latter), linking the town with
Northfield on the Midland Railway's Birmingham to
Bristol main line, with intermediate stations at
Rubery,
Hunnington, and a workmen's halt at
Longbridge serving the car factories (not to be confused with the present Longbridge station). Being largely rural in character, the line failed to attract much traffic and regular passenger services ended between Halesowen and Northfield as far back as 1919, and between Old Hill and Halesowen in 1927, though the workmen's trains continued to serve Longbridge until 1960. The line is now lifted, but the track-bed can be seen close to the town, although there is no sign of the station. The goods shed remained until recently, serving as an industrial unit though it has now been demolished. In the 1960s, the town centre underwent vast redevelopment which saw most of the older buildings demolished. The high street was pedestrianised and a shopping precinct (called "The Precinct") was developed, housing many new retail units as well as a new
public library. The centre was refurbished in the late 1980s and placed under cover, being renamed The Cornbow Centre at this time. Trade in the town centre declined between 1985 and 1990 as the
Merry Hill Shopping Centre some away at
Brierley Hill was developed, although not as severely as it declined in Stourbridge and in particular
Dudley. The only high-profile casualty was the
J Sainsbury supermarket, which closed in 1992 due to the popularity of the store which had opened at Merry Hill three years earlier to succeed the Dudley store – combined with the onset of the
recession at the start of the 1990s. A further upgrading of the town centre took place in 2007 and 2008, with part of the Cornbow Centre (including a petrol station and several smaller retail units) being demolished to make way for a new
Asda superstore which opened on 24 November 2008. The bus station was also rebuilt. This 18-month £30 million project was completed in December 2008 and the town received a commendation for the work by the Retail Property Organisation. ==Landmarks==