To the Editor of the Walsall Observer.
Sir, – I have been rather interested in your notes and the correspondence about Henry VIII and Sutton Coldfield. I shall be much obliged if you, or any of your correspondents, can clear up a certain puzzle about the origin of the name, or place, called King’s Standing. By the way, is this the place where King Henry was supposed to be standing when he was said to be attacked by a wild boar?I have been told two quite different versions about the origin of the name King’s Standing. First, I was informed that this was the place where the Tudor Monarch used to stand to watch the hunting, or that he started the hunt from this spot, and this was one reason why Sutton was allowed to use the Tudor Rose on its coat of arms, etc.
Later on, I was informed that this was the place where Charles I stood to watch one of the battles between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians.
It is quite obvious that both these accounts of the origin of the name of King’s Standing cannot be true. Can anyone say which is the correct version of this interesting bit of local history. – Yours, etc., G.M Wood.
The newspaper (dully?) replies that Duignan says in ‘Staffordshire Place Names’ that it’s about Charles I, and that he didn’t have any evidence that the area was known as King’s Standing before 1642.
From the Walsall Observer, 9th August 1941.