Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

Wylde Green Shopping Centre used to be known as “The Yenton” or the “Tram Terminus”. The trams from Birmingham terminated there because that was the Sutton Coldfield boundary, and the body responsible for making the origina...

Joseph Webster owned the thriving wire mill at Penns, and in 1842 he made his 24-year-old son his partner in the firm. The son, who bore the unusual Christian name “Baron”, had returned to Sutton from university three years previously ...

Thomas Bonell was not happy with the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield when they gave a lease to Mr. Dolphin and Mr. Homer a pool at Black Root in Sutton Park. In 1757 forty-eight acres of Sutton Park had been granted to Simon Luttrell of Fou...

The Victorian Rector of Sutton Coldfield, the Rev. W.K.Riland Bedford, was an antiquarian. His History of Sutton Coldfield is a standard work, but his other books, Blazon of Episcopy and The Woodmen of Arden are rarities. The Woodmen of Arden is a...

The Earl of Warwick granted a lease of Sutton Manor House and Park to Sir Ralph Bracebridge in 1419, possibly renewing an earlier lease. A bank and ditch earthwork in Sutton Park, believed to date from about 1400, can still be traced, and indicate...

On the 81 acres of land owned by Sir Robert Lawley in the north-east corner of Sutton Coldfield in 1824 stood two farmhouses and fifteen cottages. This property lay near Canwell Gate, separated from the rest of Sutton by the commons at Roughley an...

Church repairs Sutton Parish Church consisted of a chancel, a nave and a tower until Bishop Vesey added to its beauty and seating capacity by building two handsome aisles. The original north and south walls were replaced by a series of large Roma...

Vagrancy was rife in sixteenth century England. A law was made making it an offence to give shelter to vagrants, enforced locally in the Sutton Coldfield Court Leet in 1554 - “And that no inhabitant receive any vagrants in their houses, and ...

The Medieval way of farming was still being practised by John Greasebrook, a yeoman farmer from Wigginshill who died in 1671. When he made his will, Greasebrook itemized all his land, including twenty-six ridges in the open fields of Wigginshill (...

Under the Feudal system, villagers rented their farmland from the lord of the manor. In 1308 an inquiry at Sutton set out the conditions which applied locally when land was rented, not for money, but in return for services such as working on the l...