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The Kowback, 2016

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Kowback has been suggested as an early name of the brook which flows through the village of Oldswinford, formerly in Worcestershire and now in Dudley Metropolitan Borough. The name occurs in only one historical source document, and by carefully re-examining this text in conjunction with later plans and maps it is demonstrated here that the Kowback was, in all likelihood, a completely different, although minor, brook to the east. Further, it is argued that the term may actually represent a transcription error for the contemporaneous name Robache, a lane bearing the latter appellation having led from the main Stourbridge-to-Lye road (now the A458) almost directly to the Kowback.