Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

One of the hazards of local history research is having confidence in the sources of information. For example, Riland Bedford in his History of Sutton Coldfield published in 1890 confidently states that the building at 1, 3 and 5 Coleshill Street h...

A Medieval ploughman working all day in his fields is said to have been sustained by drinking a gallon (nearly five litres) of ale. The ale consumed in this way was small beer, of low alcohol content, only half the strength of that served up in th...

“What pictures of wild battle do these overgrown dykes suggest! What skin-clad barbarians fighting with strange weapons in peaceful-looking Sutton!”. William Midgley was inspired to write these stirring lines in his 1904 History of the Town and Ch...

New Hall Mill will be grinding corn again on Sunday May 14th, and the volunteer millers will be hoping that nothing goes wrong. One problem already experienced several times occurs when the grains of wheat are too soft and the wheat turns into pas...

The dam of Blackroot Pool in Sutton Park was completed in 1759. Lying as it did within Sutton Park, the corporation of Sutton, known as the Warden and Society, owned the site of the pool, but the pool really belonged to Joseph Duncumb of Moat Hous...

The first bus services in Sutton were provided by horse-drawn omnibuses, as Miss Bracken, writing in 1860, noted, ““Other modes of breaking the silence have been discovered in omnibuses oscillating between Birmingham and Sutton, with multitudes im...

I’ve received lots of compliments about the “History Spot” articles, particularly since I had to miss a few weeks recently, so thank you. In writing the articles I depend heavily on the local history collections at Sutton Library. For example, in...

Sutton Coldfield’s Town Charter of 1528 put an end to the feudal system which had operated in the town for over half a century, and the dissolution of Canwell Priory shortly after released Hill and Little Sutton from their feudal obligations to th...

The Sutton Coldfield Volunteer Rifle Corps was formed in 1880, and at full strength it comprised 140 officers and men. Sutton men wishing to join a join a volunteer force before 1880 could probably have gone to the Warwickshire Rifle Volunteers; i...

If the letter from Cromwell to Captain Eyre, of Wolverhampton, - preserved in the Salt collection - be genuine, Cromwell himself was in the town of Sutton on the 27th August 1643” wrote Riland Bedford in his “History of Sutton Coldfield”, 1891. W....