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This section contains an archive of the late Roger Lea's History Spot articles, first published in the Sutton Observer local newspaper.
Click the column headings to change the order of these articles.
Page 24 of 50
That the open field system of agriculture was followed in Sutton Coldfield in the Middle Ages is evident from documentary sources. The actual location of the open fields is harder to determine because the earliest large-scale maps of the area date...
John Honeybourne had to stop what he was doing on Tuesday 19th November 1751 when the Constable ordered him to be on the jury at a Coroner’s Inquest that afternoon. He and eleven others were to attend “The Dwelling House of Samuel Smit...
In 1800 Lichfield Road was still “a tortuous and narrow road which led up to Mere Pool”, but it was much improved when it was taken over by a Turnpike Trust in 1807. Tamworth Road was even worse, and Little Sutton Lane led down the hil...
In May 1940 the German advance into France exacerbated fears that the invasion of Britain would soon follow. Then, on the evening of 14 May 1940 the Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, gave a radio broadcast announcing the formation of the L...
Longmoor Valley in Sutton Park extends from the dam of Longmoor Pool up to the golf course, and is described as having a broad valley floor bounded by rising ground. Most of the valley floor was waterlogged marsh and bog, and in places the mossy v...
Longmoor Pool was made in 1734. The dam has been strengthened since it was first made - you can still see the quarry at the east end of the dam where the material for the original earth dam was extracted. Permission to make the dam had to be given...
A controversial decision faced the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield in the 1780s - “to whom of the neighbouring masters of hounds the privilege of drawing the park coverts should be conceded”. Some members of the Warden and Socie...
Every five years, from the seventeenth century onwards, the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield set out the lot acres and restated the conditions which applied to them. Every householder in Sutton was entitled to an acre of common land, to cult...
The hamlet of Maney was an ancient settlement of a few houses clustered round what is now Bodington Gardens. It was a rural community with an open field system of farming, the fields extending to the south and east as far as Wylde Green Road. The ...
At the Railway Enquiry of 1859, the merits of two possible terminus stations in Sutton were considered, the site of one of them being near Lower Parade. A witness, Dr. Oates, said “a great accumulation of moisture arises in that valley - it ...