The name Handsworth originates from its Saxon owner Hondes and the Old English word weorthing, meaning farm or estate. It was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086, as a holding of William Fitz-Ansculf, the Lord of Dudley, although at that time it would only have been a very small village surrounded by farmland and extensive woodland. Handsworth parish was transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire, and became part of Birmingham, in 1911. The redbrick building with the clocktower in the photograph was originally the offices of the district council on Soho Road.