The peculiar feature of this house, however, is the very curious timber turret or lantern which rises nearly from the centre of the roof, and has its principal frontage towards the north. It is square, and forms one small room, to which a subsequent addition appears to have been made. The parish Church (dedicated to St. Clement) is distant from the House about two miles. Modern “improvement” has been busily at work in mutilating and defacing it; yet “ignorant churchwardens” have been unable to deprive it entirely of the venerable character it derives from age. From the little that remains of ancient work, the whole Church seems to have been built during the later period of the Decorated style of architecture, with here and there additional portions of a later date. On the south side there is a small chapel but whether used as a chantry or not is uncertain, the date upon it being as late as 1618. It is most probable that it was used as the burial-place of the Whorwoods; an old family, who inhabited a mansion built on the site of the Priory of Sandwell, which stood at a short distance from the Church. The Tower of the Church is square, of two stories, and has an octagonal turret on its northern side. The Font also is octagonal, with the sides pannelled, and containing shields. It stands at the west end of the north aisle. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Church are several old houses, which seem to belong to the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries, and originally formed the village of West Bromwich, which at that period must have been a very inconsiderable place; but, from its situation near the main-road through the mining district, and the rapid increase of coal and iron works in its vicinity, it has become of considerable note; the whole of the distance between the Oak House and the Church being thickly covered with houses, among which are three new churches, several meeting-houses, and the other ordinary accompaniments of a modern town. Within about the distance of a mile, at a place where three lanes meet, is a wayside inn, bearing the sign of “The Stone Cross;” of the cross which formerly existed there, barely a trace is left.