Halfshire

Halfshire (Latin: Hundredum Dimidii Comitatūs, "hundred of half (the) county") was one of the hundreds in the English county of Worcestershire. As three of the five hundreds in the county were jurisdictions exempt from the authority of the sheriff, the hundred was considered to be half what was subject to his jurisdiction, whence the name.

The hundred seems to have been formed in the mid-12th century, by amalgamating the Domesday hundreds of Came (except three of the Came manors, viz. Alvechurch, Stoke Prior and Osmerley which went to the hundred of Oswaldslow),[1] Clent, Cresslau, and Esch, other than those parts where an ecclesiastical exempt jurisdiction existed, which were joined to the appropriate ecclesiastical hundreds about the same time.

Anciently, it contained the following manors:
Belbroughton, Bentley Pauncefoot, Bromsgrove, Chaddesley Corbett, Churchill, Church Lench, Cofton Hackett, Cradley, Doverdale, Droitwich, Dudley, Elmbridge, Elmley Lovett, Feckenham, Frankley, Hadzor, Hagley, Kidderminster, Kingsford (in Wolverley), Kings Norton, Kington, Lutley, Northfield, Oldswinford, Over Mitton (formerly in Hartlebury, but now part of Stourport), Pedmore, Rushock, Salwarpe, Stone, Stourbridge, Upton Warren, and Warley Wigorn. Of these, Kington and Church Lench were exclaves. Feckenham and Bentley Pauncefoot were also nearly exclaves until Tardebigge was added.

It also contained the extra-parochial places of Crutch, Grafton Manor, and Westwood Park.

By the late 17th century the hundred was administered in two divisions. The court for the lower division met at Churchill "under a great tree".