Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

In the eighteenth century the road from Sutton Coldfield to Lichfield was a tortuous and narrow lane, leading up from Mere Green through the village of Hill and on to the common which sloped down towards Staffordshire. The whole route was greatly ...

The old boundary of Sutton, as recorded by the Enclosure Commissioner in 1824, followed Hurst Brook from the canal to Wishaw Lane.Hurst Brook rises at the moat of Peddimore Hall - it is now a ditch cutting a straight line across a flat prairie, bu...

Claudius, the Emperor of Rome, ordered his army to invade Britain in the year AD43. Four years later, most of England was pacified, and the network of Roman roads was in place, built for military and official use. As the empire expanded northwards...

An account of Sutton published in 1762, “The History of Sutton Coldfield by an Impartial Hand”, is in three parts. The first part, originally printed as a magazine article, is a description of the town and its history, the second, “Continuation”, ...

The Schoolmaster of Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School from 1647 to 1659 was John Elly. This was the period of the Civil War and Commonwealth, when literacy was seen as very desirable – perhaps Mr Elly was giving lessons to local children a...

In 1416 the Head Forester of the Earl of Warwick’s Chase of Sutton Coldfield reported to the Court Leet at Sutton that some men had let their pigs loose in the lord’s park without permission, to the destruction of the vegetation there....

The Clarenceux King of Arms, the Chester Herald, and Rouge Dragon Pursuivant conducted a visitation of the County of Warwick in 1682. They were officers of the College of Arms, and their business was to ensure that families with coats of arms were...

Joseph Powell, a gentleman farmer who lived in the Ashfurlong district of Sutton Coldfield, was the Warden of Sutton in 1657. In 1663 a tax was payable on every hearth, sometimes called the chimney tax, and the tax collector noted that Joseph Powe...

“Another family which now (1800s) began to exercise influence in the place was that of Webster of Penns Mill” wrote Riland Bedford in his History of Sutton Coldfield 1890. It was hard for tradesmen and manufacturers to become accepted in polite so...

“The dam at Keepers Pool broke one day” wrote Richard Holbeche in his Diary, “carrying off all the water, which much surprised the Wiggans.” In 1850 the blade mill powered by the stream issuing out of Keepers Pool closed ...