John Randall

History of Madeley John Randall

There is a touch alike of poetry and of meaning in the name. Our ancestors were delineators of natural scenery, verbally, and by the use of names. Taking possession of primeval lands and uncleared forests, driving their aboriginal owners before them-in one or more syllables they were wont to give the history of a place, or the more distinguishing features of a country, and word-pictures then current come down to us little altered, having coiled up within them considerable sense and by-gone meaning. Tradition, no less than the popular and generally accepted etymology of the name, informs us that Shrewsbury was originally the place of shrubs; that the dusky crow croaked at Crawley, and the chattering daw built its nest at Dawley. The broc or brag-Anglo-Saxon terms for the badger, once numerous along the Severn Valley-gave us the Brocholes. To reynard we are indebted, in like manner, for the modern name of Foxholes-a place near to the latter, where this animal flourished when Madeley Wood, now covered with cottages, was what its name implied.