Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

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 manorial court of Sutton Coldfield dealt with succession to property. At the 1416 court, for example, Thomas Mason came into court and was approved as the inheritor of a selion or strip of land in Sutton Open Field, but in order to own it he h...

Villa residences, large houses for newly-rich manufacturers and industrialists, were being built in Sutton Coldfield from the 1840s onwards. Birmingham Road and Chester Road were favoured sites - some of the villas are still there - and in 1872 on...

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...

At one time every field in Sutton had a name. Sometimes the names were simply descriptive, such as Triangle Piece and Roundabout Piece, or referred to some landmark, for example Apple Tree Field or Finger Post Piece, which was near the corner of L...

The old town of Sutton Coldfield ceased to exist in 1883, and the Borough of Sutton Coldfield was established in its place when the new Charter was received from Queen Victoria in April 1886. The new corporation had more responsibilities than the ...

Sutton Coldfield High Street is a Conservation Area, “an area of special architectural and historic interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance”. The area was recently reviewed, and earlier thi...

The Branch line to Sutton Coldfield opened for passenger traffic on June 2nd 1862, and the owner of the line, the London and North Western Railway Company, had to produce the locomotives and rolling stock which would operate the service. At the en...

Sutton Coldfield in 1845 was described as mainly agricultural, a not very important place with little trade. Sutton had doubled in population, however, in the previous hundred years, and the enclosure of the commons in the 1820s had increased the ...

The Plough and Harrow Inn on Slade Road just east of Little Sutton was built on the site of a row of cottages and other old buildings. This isolated settlement on the fringes of Little Sutton consisted of a row of eleven houses and cottages known ...