The oldest building of all in the parish is the old Mill by the Court house. It is mentioned in Domesday; and looking at the thickness and hardness of some of the beams they seem calculated to last as long as they have done; and even they seem to have done duty in some former building. The old wheel is gone and the one which succeeded it, and the pool, originally a fishpond, which supplied water power has gone too; it was, when we remember it on the upper side the old granary or barn. The Hay House also must be ranked among the oldest buildings of its class, as one which comes down to us from forest times, and in connection with this _bosc_ or Madeley-Wood we have been describing. The house stood here no doubt in forest times, and in its capacious cellars good venison and wine have ere now been stored. Among the oldest houses in Madeley now standing must be mentioned that belonging to and occupied by Mr. George Legge, where Mr. Wolfe entertained King Charles. Also the house belonging to Mr. John Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox informs us that in the writings it was originally called “Little Hay;” having been built for the son of the proprietor of the Hay house; and that in front was the fold-yard, with a house or two at the outside for farm servants. The interior of the house bears marks of great antiquity; and one room appeals to have been used as a chapel. In what was originally a field was found a well formed with circular stones; on the top ranges are figures, 12 in number, probably representing saints of the Roman Calendar. Some of the old heavily timbered cottages have been pulled down to make way for modern structures. Freed from exacting forest laws openings in woods began to be made; and during the next two centuries houses of timber, half timber, and wattle-and-dab, and timber and bricks, began to rise up here and there, at Madeley, along the Severn side, and at the Lloyds. Some houses were fitted together, so far as their frame-work was concerned, in woods where the timber grew, and the parts being afterwards removed were pegged together: among them may have been the New house mentioned in Henry the VIII’s grant of 1544, that bearing the date 1612, in the Dale, Bedlam Hall, and the Blockhouse. {333}