Origination from a geographic location, originally Bredhill

Again this is covered by the research of John Hemingway and his co-workers in the Historic Environment Team of Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council: much of the content below has been derived from their publication "Township of Audenham with Brettell 1750".  The map of Audenham shown above has been taken from this publication.

According to Hemingway, Brettell was a township of Kingswinford with the place-name displaying much corruption in the post-medieval period, the early name being a version of Bred Hill which in turn is likely to have derived from either Brit (British) or Brad (Broad) Hill. The earliest reference to the place is from Thomas de Bredhill, i.e. Thomas from Bredhill, recorded in 1327.  Hemingway suggests that the site of the original settlement was on a flat part of the slope between Amblecote and Brierley Hill on Brettell Lane quite close to the Bull Street junction and that this was the original Bred Hill.  You can still find Brettell Lane and Bull Street on modern maps; shown below  is a detailed section of the 1750 map showing Brettell and also a modern Google map of the same area showing the Brettell township between the junction of Bull St. with Brettell Lane and the junction of Church St. and the B4172 road.  It is interesting to see that the more modern Dudley Canal skirts around the area to keep to a constant low level; again giving support to the idea that the Brettell was a "broad hill".

The geographic location origin of the name is supported by the fact that the surname is much more common in the Black Country area of England than elsewhere in the world, with this concentraion persisting to the current day (see the section on Brettle Name Distribution).

Finally it is worth noting that Brettell Lane is thought to have existed as a route over 1,400 years ago: a neolithic polished stone axe has been found near Brettell Lane (perhaps the Brettells may be even older than we thought!).