Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

The Parade in Sutton Coldfield was christened in 1880 - before that it was known as The Dam. For many centuries it was indeed a dam, forming a large reservoir fed by the streams flowing out of Sutton Park. The pool, which extended beyond the prese...

In the 1780s revolution was in the air - the American Revolutionary War ended in 1783, and the French Revolution broke out in 1789. In Sutton Coldfield, the townsfolk were dissatisfied with their governing body, the Warden and Society, finding its...

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...

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 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...

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...

Of the severe winters within living memory, January 26th 1940 saw the heaviest snowfall, 1963 the longest continuous frost, but the winter of 1947 was when Sutton Coldfield suffered the greatest hardship. The “Sutton Coldfield News” fo...

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...

Six thousand years ago woodland covered most of England, sometimes known as wildwood. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors made little impact on the wildwood, but when people began to settle down and practice agriculture, about 3,000 BC, swathes of wildw...

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...