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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 26 of 50
The Sutton Byway is a seven-and-a-half mile (12 kilometre) route through Sutton Coldfield’s Green Belt from Hillwood to Peddimore. An earlier version of the byway, known as the Rural Way, began at Hill Hook, and included the stretch of Hillw...
On Tuesday the eleventh of April 1854 a great crowd gathered in Sutton Coldfield to call for changes in the government of the town. The protest meeting was held in the open air at Cliftons Hills (where the railway station car park is now), and it ...
After the battle of Worcester in 1651 and the final victory of the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War, some men who had supported the royalist cause refused to submit to the Parliament’s terms. They were known as “Delinquents” (those ac...
When planning permission for the demolition of Barn Farm was granted, the developer was required to commission a detailed record of the buildings and the site, and a copy of the report can be seen in Sutton Library. During the archaeological surve...
Sir Wolstan Dixie, a London merchant, gave Emmanuel College, Cambridge, £600 in 1594. The College, which had been founded ten years earlier by Dixie’s friend Sir Walter Mildmay, used this money to buy property which yielded an annual i...
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 Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield was governed by the Warden and Society, a body of twenty-five men equivalent to a Mayor and Corporation. Their rule came under the scrutiny of the Court of Chancery, and the court issued an order in 1824 setting ...
The Bailiff of Sutton Coldfield presented an account of income and expenditure to the Lord of the Manor every year until 1528, when Sutton became a self-governing town. John Bailly held the office of bailiff in 1480, and his detailed account for t...
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...