Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

To the east of Weeford Road and Whitehouse Common Road lies Sutton’ green belt. North of Tamworth Road is Ashfurlong Hall and its grounds, while on the opposite side of Tamworth Road is Wheatmore Farm. Wheatmore is mentioned in a document of...

Most of the houses in Sutton up until 1500 were timber-framed single-storey buildings with a thatched roof - easily burned down. They were heated by an open fire in the centre of the main room or hall, and this was a wood-burning fire, the smoke e...

Four Oaks Park in 1820 covered 46 acres, not big enough for the owner of Four Oaks Hall, Sir Edmund Hartopp. By taking 63 acres from the adjacent Sutton Park, he could enlarge his Four Oaks Park to a more respectable size, but the Court of Chancer...

The unlicensed processing of animal skins was not allowed in medieval Sutton. Heavy fines were imposed by the Court Leet in 1549 - William Harman had cured or tanned two stomach linings of sheep to make parchment; John Hargreve and Ralph Gybbons, ...

In 1853 a notice was posted by the Warden and Society prohibiting the pursuit of game in the park on the grounds that unrestricted hunting had almost destroyed all the game, and over-eager sportsmen were damaging woods and fences. This ban upset ...

The forest laws which had applied to Sutton for centuries were revoked by Bishop Vesey in 1528 when Sutton received its Borough Charter. Now Sutton farmers could leave their sheep to graze freely on the extensive common lands, and they were quick ...

By Act of Parliament dated 1824 the surveyor John Harris was appointed to be the Commissioner for the Enclosure of the commons of Sutton Coldfield. One of his first duties was to define the boundaries of Sutton, and he did this by making a perambu...

The “Old Sun” public House stood in Coleshill Street, and was demolished in 1938 to make way for Vesey Gardens. It was on the opposite side of the road from the childhood home of Richard Holbeche, and he mentions it in his Diary of 1...

One of the biggest farms in Sutton in 1820 was Wylde Green Farm, with over 190 acres. The farmhouse (now demolished) stood on the south side of Wylde Green Road, and the ancient farmland lay to the south of the farm, extending as far as Walmley Go...

Alwin of Arden was the Saxon Sheriff of Warwickshire at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and his son Turchil continued to be a powerful lord in the new reign. In the twelfth century the family was known as Arden of Wigginshill, and at the ...

An excellent example of a stone-age hand axe lay undiscovered in the centre of Sutton Coldfield for over fifty thousand years. It was unearthed in 2006, and has now been studied by archaeologists and reported in PAST, the newsletter of the Prehi...

Until 1812 the Roman road in Sutton Park had been the parish and county boundary, the part of the park to the west of Icknield Street being in Great Barr. When the commons of Great Barr and Little Aston were enclosed in 1812, this part of the park...

The population of Sutton was growing in the 1860s, and so the demand for services was on the increase. There were shops, scattered along High Street and Mill Street, but it was not until 1870, with the first purpose-built shops on the Parade, that...

The railway came to Sutton in 1862 with a 5-mile-long line from Aston with a terminus at Sutton Coldfield Station. The line was owned by the London and North-Western Railway, and it was always intended to extend the railway to Lichfield where the ...

The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, alongside Kingsbury Road in the south-east corner of Sutton is the only canal which passes through Sutton Coldfield. This canal was opened in 1789, with a survey of the route being prepared in 1783 by the Birmingh...

Villa residences, large houses for newly-rich manufacturers and industrialists, were being built in Sutton Coldfield from the 1840s onwards. Birmingham Road and Chester Road were favoured sites - some of the villas are still there - and in 1872 on...

Having followed the boundary of Sutton to the ninth milestone on the turnpike road from Coleshill to Lichfield (near the junction of Camp Road and London Road), Mr. Harris turned southwards down the centre of the road past Canwell Gate House on hi...

Sutton Coldfield became a self-governing town in 1528 by virtue of a charter granted by King Henry VIII. One of the duties of the new corporation was to provide almshouses for the aged poor - prior to 1528, when Sutton was a feudal manor, alms w...

New Hall in Sutton Coldfield has the reputation of being the oldest continuously inhabited house in England. The Earl of Warwick found the old manor house on Manor Hill unsuitable as a headquarters for his hunting parties in his Chase of Sutton, a...

Miss Bracken says that the name Maney derives from the Celtic “meini”, meaning stone, in her 1860 History of the Forest and Chase of Sutton Coldfield. A prehistoric settlement at Maney is a possibility, as it lies where building stone outcrops nex...

Saint Modwen lived in the eighth century as an anchoress on an island in the River Trent at Burton, according to legend, and worked a miracle cure of king Ethelwolf’s son. She founded Polesworth Abbey for the king’s daughter Editha, and the water ...

Collets Brook forms the north-eastern boundary of Sutton, as it did in 1824 when Mr. Harris, the Commissioner for the Enclosure of the Commons of Sutton Coldfield, made his survey. He followed the stream down through Swash Vale to Taylor’s...

The building of new houses on green field sites near the centre of Sutton was a rare event in the first half of the nineteenth century. Large villa residences for rich industrialists wanting a Sutton address were being built, mostly along Birmingh...

In 1650 the Civil War was over, Oliver Cromwell was in power and puritans held sway. Births, marriages and deaths still occurred, however, still celebrated in church by the vicar and recorded in the parish register by the clerk - not good enough f...

Lady Ffolliot of Four Oaks Hall died in 1744, and the Hall was sold to Simon Luttrell of Luttrellstown in Ireland. Simon Luttrell was an ambitious politician in need of an English country house, and he settled at Four Oaks Hall with his wife and e...

Hugh Lewis moved in to Woodfield House in 1889. Apartments now occupy the site of Woodfield House, but the curious garden wall, fourteen feet high in places, which runs alongside the footpath which separated Woodfield House from no. 174 Hill Vil...

Keepers Pool in Sutton Park is said to have been made in the fifteenth century, but a twelfth century date is equally likely. In setting out a deer park, the Lord of the Manor needed to include areas of woodland, some open spaces, and some stret...

“The dam at Keepers Pool broke one day” wrote Richard Holbeche in his Diary, “carrying off all the water, which much surprised the Wiggans.” In 1850 the blade mill powered by the stream issuing out of Keepers Pool closed ...