King. Alexander and Gregory de Coſton hold land in Westhethe, Master John de Aluvechurch as (sic) 1 and half acres of purpresture upon "La Westhethe" by permission of Robert de Coſton". In 1494 it was recorded that "Baldwin Lyndon – banks in ruins between Hawkesley Pole and Westhethe...fined 2d" whilst the Abbot of Bordesley was fined 8d "through defect in cleansing the banks at West Hethe". In 1596, a woman called Joan was fined 6d because "she enclosed a parcel of the King's waste at West Heath". Turves Green was known as Turvosland in 1490 and was the site for peat-cutting for fuel. There is a layer of peat a few feet below the surface and deeper still are successive layers of clay and a coal seam and a bloomery has been discovered – this is the first form of forge for smelting iron from ore leaving less bulk to transport for further smelting to refine the metal. In 1442 Turves Green had been named Le Grene Slave, Greenway Lane in 1780 and Green Lane in 1877. During the English Civil War West Heath was on the border between royalist Worcestershire and parliamentary Warwickshire and there were regular minor skirmishes and conflicts between the forces of the two opposing sides. Situated off Turves Green, Hawkesley House, which belonged to the royalist George Middlemore and his family, was besieged and seized by parliamentary forces under Colonel Tinker Fox in April 1644. The Parliamentarians fortified the building but on 13 May 1645 Royalist forces under the king’s nephews Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice laid siege to Hawkesley House and were joined the following day by King Charles I who had been staying at nearby Cofton Hall. The Royalists took the house on 16 May and expelled the Parliamentary forces and razed the house to the ground. The inhabitants of West Heath would also have been aware of other clashes close by during the Civil War. Two miles away at Kings Norton Prince Rupert with eight troops of horses and 300 foot soldiers was engaged on 17 October 1642 on Kings Norton Green by a Parliamentary force of 800 foot soldiers and horsemen on its way to join the Earl of Essex at Worcester. The Royalists were routed by the Parliamentarians under Lord Willoughby Of Parham and fifty Royalist troops were killed and buried in a unmarked grave in King's Norton Churchyard. On