Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

A Select Committee of the House of Commons inquired into the merits of two proposed railway lines from the fourth to the seventh of July 1859. Witnesses from Sutton and Erdington came and testified, giving evidence in favour either the “Birmingham...

When first built, the mill pond at New Hall Mill was fed by water from a leat which carried the whole flow of the E brook. The next mill down the valley, at Penns, built at about the same time in the 1580s, almost certainly used the same method, d...

Shortly after Charles Chadwick inherited the New Hall Estate a survey was taken. The property surveyed included three farms, some cottages, and New Hall Mill. This was in February 1795, when William Twamley held the lease of the mill, the third of...

For most people wishing to go from Sutton to Birmingham in 1814 the choice was either to walk or to ride in someone’s cart. Sarah Holbeche noted “1814 the carter’s cart became a caravan (i.e. a covered wagon) - the only conveyanc...

A survey of Sutton Park, made in 1779, shows that the boundary fence had nine gates. Only four of the gates lead into the park from Sutton, the other five give access from the neighbouring Staffordshire parishes of Perry Barr and Great Barr - op...

Sutton Coldfield was still a rural place in 1800 with a population of 2,800. This was almost double the estimated figure for the year 1700, but not enough to change the rural character of the town - the population of the nearby industrial towns wa...

Allerton College was the largest secondary school for girls in Sutton in 1900, most of the others being private houses adapted for use as schools. On the opposite side of Lichfield Road from Allerton College was Iona Cottage, now 69 Lichfield Road...

The old town hall (or moot hall) of Sutton Coldfield, built by Bishop Vesey in 1529, stood at the junction of Mill Street, High Street and Coleshill Street. It was declared unsafe and demolished in 1854, when Sarah Holbeche commented in her diary,...

Langley Hall was an important place in the thirteenth century, home of the De Bereford family, statesmen who often had to travel. Bulls Lane and Ox Leys Road were their routes to Coleshill, Warwick, and London, while in the other direction their r...

The Corporation (Warden and Society) of Sutton Coldfield held its monthly meetings in the Moot Hall. By the 1850s the ancient structure was showing signs of collapse, and the Warden’s Minutes for 1854 show increasing concern; in April it was...