Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

Every five years, from the seventeenth century onwards, the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield set out the lot acres and restated the conditions which applied to them. Every householder in Sutton was entitled to an acre of common land, to cult...

At the Railway Enquiry of 1859, the merits of two possible terminus stations in Sutton were considered, the site of one of them being near Lower Parade. A witness, Dr. Oates, said “a great accumulation of moisture arises in that valley - it ...

The Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield was governed by the Warden and Society, a body of twenty-five men equivalent to a Mayor and Corporation. Their rule came under the scrutiny of the Court of Chancery, and the court issued an order in 1824 setting ...

Mere Green five hundred years ago was a triangle of waste ground surrounded by farmland. The poor drainage meant that the Green was unsuitable for farming, and there was a large pool, called Mare Pool, in the centre of it. The main Lichfield Road ...

In the Middle Ages all the corn grown in Sutton had to be taken to the Manor Mills at the bottom of Mill Street to be ground into flour. This milling monopoly continued after Sutton became an independent town in 1528, but by the 1570s change was o...

In 1778 three of the biggest local landowners, Mr. Hackett of Moxhull, Sir Joseph Scott of Great Barr, and Mr Richard Bisse Riland, Rector of Sutton Coldfield, drew up a plan to enclose the commons of Sutton Coldfield. Sutton had very extensive co...

Railway mania raged in England in the 1840s, with hundreds of new lines of railway being proposed. Many of the great pioneer railway engineers were called on to survey the country and determine the best routes. One of them, John R. McLean, was app...

“He does not account for the pannage of the Duchess of Buckingham’s pigs in the King’s park at Eachelhurst this year” - so wrote John Bailly, the Bailiff of Sutton Coldfield, in his accounts for the year 1480. In that year ...

Local historian Norman Evans worked on a series of historical maps of Sutton Coldfield, based on informed guesswork. In drawing up his map of Sutton in Saxon times, he had to decide which trackways may have been in use then, when Birmingham was a ...

Britain was part of the Roman Empire for over 300 years, a period when every acre of land had to be exploited in order to support the 50,000-strong army and 50,000-strong civil service required to run the country, as well as sending taxes to Rome....