Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

Longmoor Valley in Sutton Park extends from the dam of Longmoor Pool up to the golf course, and is described as having a broad valley floor bounded by rising ground. Most of the valley floor was waterlogged marsh and bog, and in places the mossy v...

In the eighteenth century, treatment of mental illness was carried out by non-licensed practitioners, who often ran their “Madhouses” as a commercial enterprise and with little regard for the inmates. A Parliamentary committee investig...

A minute of a meeting of the Warden and Society of Sutton (i.e. the Corporation) held on September 29 1852 reads: “Mr. Wright, Mr. Bedford and Mr. Parker are deputed to confer with the Gas Committee as to the feasibility of aiding in establi...

The Cup public house ceased trading in 2008, after an existence of over 250 years. The building still stands, at the junction of Manor Hill and Birmingham Road, and is now a restaurant. The present building dates from 1901, but it is on the site o...

Zachariah Twamley was born at New Shipton Farm in Sutton Coldfield in 1773, one of a large family. His father was the miller at New Hall Mill, and Zachariah followed in his father’s footsteps - for many years he held Castle Bromwich Mill on the ri...

Fairs provided a welcome break from the daily round of life in a country town, the chance to spend money and enjoy the fun of the fair. Richard Holbeche recalled the Sutton fairs of his childhood in the 1850s - “booths and stalls were set up...

The English East India Company was founded in 1599. At first it was an informal group of merchant venturers sponsoring expeditions to the far east, and the Company’s first fleet returned to London in 1603 with great success. Such ventures we...

Several Victorian writers had remarked on the various banks and ditches in Sutton Park, speculating on their significance, and then in his 1904 book A Short History of the Town and Chase of Sutton Coldfield William Midgley wrote “Some warring celt...

Sutton Coldfield was incorporated as a self-governing town by Royal Charter of King Henry VIII dated December 16 1528. Rather than style the governing body a mayor and corporation, the Charter states that “they shall hereafter be called intitled a...

The Aston Hall estate of Sir Thomas Holte included, early in the eighteenth century, a farm, Stonehouse Farm, most of which is now within Sutton Park. In 1730 a dam was built there, creating a reservoir (Powell’s Pool) with a water mill nearby. Wi...

An account of Sutton published in 1762, “The History of Sutton Coldfield by an Impartial Hand”, is in three parts. The first part, originally printed as a magazine article, is a description of the town and its history, the second, “Continuation”, ...

A great storm on July 24 1668 caused a flood which broke the dams of Bracebridge Pool and Wyndley Pool, and the Parish Clerk noted in the baptisms section of the parish register “the Flood of water was so great here at Sutton Pool that it flowed o...

The governing body of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, established in 1528, consisted of twenty five men known as the Warden and Society until it was replaced in 1886 by a Mayor and Corporation. Each year on November 2 a new Warden would be ele...

“Another family which now (1800s) began to exercise influence in the place was that of Webster of Penns Mill” wrote Riland Bedford in his History of Sutton Coldfield 1890. It was hard for tradesmen and manufacturers to become accepted in polite so...

A document of 1569 gives the impression that Little Sutton was then a community of about eighteen subsistence farmers and one or two yeomen, living in houses clustered along the village green, which stretched along Little Sutton Road from the Fox ...

Sutton Coldfield used to have a High Steward. The office of High Steward of Sutton Coldfield was created by King Henry VIII in the 1528 Charter of Incorporation of the town. In addition to the governing body, known as the Warden and Society, the t...

Chester Road enters Sutton Coldfield near the railway bridge by Chester Road Station, and continues within the Sutton boundary as far as the Beggar’s Bush. Until the early nineteenth century this stretch of road ran across an expanse of bleak heat...

When the commons were enclosed the heathland on either side of Chester Road became the property of private owners; most of the land to the north of Chester Road became the property of the Rector of Sutton, W.K.Riland Bedford, while the strip of la...

In 1762 the Gentleman’s Magazine published an article about Sutton Coldfield. The writer, calling himself “Incola”, observed “Some rivulets that take their rise in this park, feed several mills built in and near it; not onl...

The building at no. 1 High Street, now occupied by N Legal, has hardly changed in appearance for nearly three hundred years; however, just over three hundred years ago, in 1710, it would have looked very different, a large stone house with mullio...

The Wolverhampton, Walsall and Midland Junction Railway Act received the Royal Assent on August 8th 1872, authorising the WW&MJR Company to build the line of railway which now crosses over Rectory Road and Coleshill Road on its way to join the...

In the twelfth century the Manor of Sutton consisted of a central small town or village called Great Sutton and a number of scattered hamlets separated from each other by swathes of countryside. These hamlets were Maney, Walmley Ash, Little Sutton...

Hill Village in 1824 had changed greatly since medieval times, when most of the inhabitants were farmers with land in the open fields. In 1824 only six of the fifty-four householders in Hill Village Road were farmers, mostly with small holdings of...

Bracebridge Pool in Sutton Park has changed in appearance over the years. Early maps show that the pool extended to include Little Bracebridge Pool, which is now separated from the main pool by a stretch of swampy ground. One possiblity is that Li...

Four hundred years ago, although Maney was only a small hamlet, separated from Sutton Town by the valley of the E Brook, the inhabitants took an active part in Sutton Coldfield affairs. Several of the Wardens (the Warden was effectively the Mayor ...

Richard Ashford was a yeoman farmer in Maney in the 1640s. It was a mixed farm, with cattle and sheep as well as crops growing in the fields. Ashford had two horses to do the work of the farm, but he also kept a team of four oxen - for centuries t...

Mill Street has seen a great deal of redevelopment over the years. Three hundred years ago the grammar school founded by Bishop Vesey and some almshouses used to stand near Church Hill. However, on 6th March 1737 the Warden and Society resolved &l...

The construction of the three railways in Sutton, the London and North-Western Railway Sutton Branch in 1862, the Midland Railway of 1879, and the Lichfield Extension line of 1884 each made an impact on High Street. At first the effect was indirec...

Emmanuel College, Cambridge, was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. Mildmay was a Puritan, and intended Emmanuel to be a college of training for Protestant preachers; other wealthy Puritans, such as ...

Joseph Powell, a gentleman farmer who lived in the Ashfurlong district of Sutton Coldfield, was the Warden of Sutton in 1657. In 1663 a tax was payable on every hearth, sometimes called the chimney tax, and the tax collector noted that Joseph Powe...