Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

In feudal times all the villagers were tenants of the lord of the manor, but the lord also retained some land and property for his own use, called the demesne. The extent of the demesne in Sutton Coldfield is given in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ...

Ralph Sponer lived at the stone house known as Moor Hall Farm in 1550. It was conveyed to him in that year by Bishop Vesey - Sponer had married Elizabeth, a relative of the Bishop. Sponer was not a farmer - hardly any land was conveyed with the ho...

More and Ashfurlong Quarter, or More et Asshforlong as it appears in the 1416 Court Roll, is shaped like a lamb chop. Whereas the other four Quarters include ancient settlements with open fields dating back to Saxon times, the houses and fields of...

The E Brook flows in an artificial channel all the way from Upper Holland Road to Eachelhurst Road, where it crosses the old boundary of Sutton. In the Middle Ages, when the brook followed its natural course, there were no bridges over this stretc...

Oughtons Mill in Sutton Coldfield closed down about 150 years ago when Mr. John Jerome transferred its gun-barrel making business to his main factory in Birmingham’s Gun Quarter. The gun barrel mill had been built nearly 300 years ago by Jos...

Many parts of Sutton Park have a natural landscape untouched by the shaping hand of man, but in other parts the results of exploitation of the Park by our ancestors is plain to see. Mike Hodder, in his new book The Archaeology of Sutton Park, note...

There was a water mill where Penns Hall Hotel now stands for nearly three hundred years. For many years it was a wire mill, owned by the Webster family - Joseph Webster I came in the 1740s, Joseph Webster II died in 1788, leaving his widow Phoebe ...

The Hearth Tax was introduced shortly after the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 to raise money for the many debts and expenses of the new administration. It was levied on every hearth (also known as the chimney tax) as a fair means of ensur...

George Sacheverell Esquire of New Hall Sutton Coldfield had no children, so the will of this wealthy man, made in 1715 at the age of 82, disposes of his wealth and property mainly among the rest of his family. He leaves New Hall to “his lovi...

George Sacheverell Esquire of New Hall Sutton Coldfield made his last will and testament on May 5th 1715 at the age of 82. It is an unusual will, reflecting the strong views of this eccentric man. New Hall had been bought by George’s grandf...