Birmingham Manor House

and St Martin in the Bull Ring on William Westley's 1731 map of Birmingham|left]] The date of the first settlement of the site is unknown. Although Birmingham's origins lie in the Anglo-Saxon period and the manor of Birmingham definitely existed at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, no evidence from earlier than the medieval period was found during the archaeological investigations of the site in the 1970s and 2000s. The circular form of the moat suggests 11th or 12th century origins, while the earliest surviving buildings were from the 12th century. The moat was associated with the castrum mentioned in the royal charter of 1166 that granted Peter de Birmingham the right to hold a…