Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

George Jackson was an out-of-work gun-barrel borer who had taken a labouring job on the road near Penns. He walked the five miles to and from work every day, and soon after 6.00 a.m. on the morning of May 27th 1817 he was walking along a footpath ...

The death of Mary Ashford on May 27th 1817 scandalised the whole country. Here, it seemed, was a case straight out of the gothic novels of Mrs. Radcliffe - a young innocent woman raped and murdered by a thuggish man. Or was it?Monday May 26th 1817...

The first Roman Catholic Church in Sutton was opened on October 21 1834 in Lichfield Road near Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School - the building, known as the Guildhall, is now offices. The opening was the subject of an article in the December 1834 iss...

“All views in Sutton Park are beautiful, but there is one which can only be described as grand”, wrote William Midgley in his 1904 History of the Town and Chase of Sutton Coldfield. He referred to the view to be had after coming up through Hollyhu...

Moat House in Lichfield Road was built in the 1680s as a prestige house by the architect Sir William Wilson on his marriage to the wealthy and well-born widow Jane Pudsey. His marriage elevated him to gentry status, so the Wilsons lived in style a...

The death of Joseph Duncumb of Moat House, Sutton Coldfield, in April 1793 no doubt cast a blight over his daughter Elizabeth’s plans, as she was on the point of getting married. However, only one month later, on May 21st 1793 Elizabeth Duncumb wa...

When Thomas Ardern inherited Peddimore in Sutton Coldfield he went hunting in the surrounding countryside, oblivious of the fact that the Earl of Warwick had the sole rights to hunt in the Chase of Sutton Coldfield. Ardern was arrested in 1287 and...

Woodland products were of great importance in the past, and in the middle ages woods were carefully managed, usually by coppicing. When harvested, the coppiced tree would send up new shoots from its base, so did not need to be replaced by a new pl...

Many writers on English history have been Anglican clergymen, who, like the Rector of Sutton, Rev. W.K.Riland Bedford, deplored “the corrupt condition of the Church before the Reformation”. Riland Bedford makes this remark after listing all the ch...

Wednesday 22nd June 1898 was bright and sunny, and the railway station at Sutton looked a picture. Over a hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen were waiting on the platform dressed in their finery, a carpet had been laid along the inclined corrid...