Page 5 - St Alphege Guide 2012 for website

An Outline History of Solihull and its Church

The first known reference to Solihull occurs in a The building of the church dates from this time.
tax list dated around 1180. The earlier Anglo- By 1200 Solihull was fully established and Ulverlei
Saxon settlement of Ulverlei lay about two miles was being referred to as Olton, the old town.
north west, in the area of present day Olton. Baron John de Limesi died in 1198 and the manor
In the time of King Edward the Confessor, passed to his sister Basilia. In 1215 she married
Ulverlei was owned by Edwin, Earl of Mercia. On Hugh de Odingsells, a Flemish knight from
his death in 1072, it was granted by William the Oudinghesela. Excavations at Hobs Moat suggest
Conqueror to Cristina, a princess of the Saxon that it was their son William who established a
royal house, sister of Edgar Atheling and of moated residence there.
Queen Margaret of Scotland. In 1242 William acquired a Royal Charter for a
Soon after the Domesday Survey of 1086 she weekly market and annual three-day fair at Solihull
became a nun and her lands were granted to on the eve, the feast and the morrow of St.
Baron Ralph de Limesi. Alphege, the 18th, 19th and 20th April, confirming
Ralph, described as a kinsman of Duke William, came that Solihull was a thriving market town.
from Limésy, north of Rouen. He married the His son Sir William de Odingsells was knighted in
daughter of William FitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford, the 1283. Like his father he was an active soldier,
Conqueror’s cousin and most powerful supporter. and he achieved the high position of Chief
For his services, Ralph received forty manors Justiciar of Ireland. He married Ela, daughter of
scattered throughout southern England. In 1086 the Earl of Salisbury and great grand-daughter of
he was granted Cristina’s manors including Ulverlei Henry II. The extensions which he made to his
to which he transferred the head of his Barony. moated home, set within the medieval park,
It is most likely that Solihull was founded, during witnessed to his rank and status. So too did his
the lordship of the last of the de Limesis, as a great scheme to rebuild the church.
market centre, a ‘planted borough’. The site First to be built . 1277 were the fine chancel and
chosen was at the junction of important medieval the chantry chapels but progress was interrupted
roads on top of the hill from which it derived its by Sir William’s death in 1295. The manor was
name ‘soly hill’ meaning ‘miry hill’. It may be that sold and the rebuilding continued slowly, not
there was already a holy well. reaching its completion until 1535.