Dear Linda, -----Original Message-----Not knowing the area, would someone be so kind as to let me know how Sweet Turf got its name and what sort of area it was in the mid 19th century?----- The name Sweet Turf was so called from the local farm pastureland, which was known for the succulent quality of its grass. (Text taken from Sweet Turf web site which has unfortunately changed location or no longer exists.) It is close to Mousesweet Brook, the name of which presumably has similar origins. These names pre-date the industrial revolution since we are extremely close here to where Mousesweet Brook meets the River Stour at Cradley Forge, a key place in Dud Dudley's pioneering work in smelting iron from coal rather than charcoal in about 1620, the advance that made the industrial revolution possible (although in the history books most of the credit went to Abraham Darby who smelted iron using coke in 1709 at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire). Thus, Dud Dudley has been described as a man "ahead of his time". In the mid-nineteenth century this area was at the heart of what Elihu Burritt, the American Consul in Birmingham in the 1860s, described as "the region of iron and smoke", where Nature is "scourged with the cat-o'nine tails of red-hot wire, and marred and scarred and fretted, and smoked half to death day and night, year and year, even on Sundays. Almost every square inch of her form is reddened, blackened and distorted". The iron industries were based on local mining of coal, iron and limestone, and local skills in nail making going back some hundreds of years. Later on (1909), 90% of all Britain's iron chain and cable were produced in the 2 or 3 square miles encompassing Netherton and the other four chain making townships of Cradley, Cradley Heath, Quarry Bank and Old Hill. In 1852 my great, great, great, great grandfather's brother Noah Hingley moved his chain works from Cradley to Netherton and it went on to produce 20-25% of the entire British output of wrought iron. And Sweet Turf was just down the road! I hope this helps. Nigel Brown ENG-WOR-CRADLEY@rootsweb.com