The story of Penn

Penn sits on a ridge on the south-western edge of Wolverhampton, where the city gives way to the fields of South Staffordshire. The name is usually traced to a Brittonic (early Welsh) word for a hill or headland, which suits the high ground around St Bartholomew's Church.

Early Penn

People were worshipping here before the Normans came. The base and stem of an Anglo-Saxon cross still stand in the round churchyard of St Bartholomew's, and local tradition links them to Lady Godiva. The Domesday survey of 1086 lists two manors. Before the Conquest, Lower Penn was held by Countess Godiva of Mercia and Upper Penn by her son, Earl Algar. Afterwards both passed to William FitzAnsculf and his tenants. For centuries the two were known as "Penn Over" and "Penn Under". The line of today's Penn Road (A449) roughly separates Upper Penn, now in Wolverhampton, from Lower Penn, which is still a rural parish in South Staffordshire.

Sir Hugh de Bushbury rebuilt the church around 1200 and dedicated it to St John the Baptist. Nobody knows when it became St Bartholomew's. The oldest surviving work is the 14th-century north arcade, and the tower dates from the 15th century. Later came a brick casing on the tower (1765), a south aisle (1845) and a large restoration by the Lancaster architects Paley and Austin (1871–72). The church is Grade II* listed.

Penn Hall and Penn Common

Penn Hall, off Vicarage Road, is also Grade II* listed. It is a 17th-century house refronted in early Georgian style. Dr Raphael Sedgwick and his wife planned to turn it into a hospital, but Thomas Bradney, a Staffordshire JP and High Sheriff, finished the rebuilding instead in the 18th century. Its later occupants included ironmasters, the Gibbons lock-making family and, from about 1950, trainee police constables. Since 1974 it has been Penn Hall School, a special school, so the founders' idea of a building that cares for people has in a way come true.

Penn Common, to the south-east, is one of the few parts of the old parish that was never built on. In the early 19th century it held horse races. Then in 1892–93 the South Staffordshire Golf Club laid out a course there with the agreement of the commoners and the Duke of Sutherland, who was lord of the manor. Penn Golf Club has run the course since 1908. The Barley Mow pub still stands on the common.

From village to suburb

In 1831 Penn had fewer than 900 residents. Houses began spreading along Penn Road in Edwardian times, and many of the people who moved in worked at the Sunbeam motor works. Building picked up again between the wars, when Wolverhampton became a county borough (1930), and again after 1945. By then the fields north and west of the old church were covered with housing. Today the Penn ward has around 12,700 residents. It remains one of Wolverhampton's greener, leafier suburbs, with local shops at Upper Penn, Penn and Springhill. The actor Anya Chalotra grew up in neighbouring Lower Penn.

Early Penn

Penn Hall and Penn Common

From village to suburb

Sources & further reading