Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

Joseph Webster owned the thriving wire mill at Penns, and in 1842 he made his 24-year-old son his partner in the firm. The son, who bore the unusual Christian name “Baron”, had returned to Sutton from university three years previously having decid...

Collets Brook forms the north-eastern boundary of Sutton, as it did in 1824 when Mr. Harris, the Commissioner for the Enclosure of the Commons of Sutton Coldfield, made his survey. He followed the stream down through Swash Vale to Taylor’s...

William Rooker of Maney had a joined bedstead with a feather mattress on top of a chaff mattress, a bolster, a red rug and two blankets. The bed was a four-poster, with a canopy and red curtains, and after his death in 1673 the bed was valued at &...

The red kite must once have been a common bird in Sutton. When the Pinner (in charge of the town pound, where stray animals were kept) had to describe the colour of a stray horse to the Sutton Court Leet in 1563, he said it was kite-coloured - “A ...

The east window of the Vesey Chapel in Sutton Parish Church was installed in 1870, and is by the firm of Ballantyne of Edinburgh. It is known as the Bishops Window, because each of the four panels celebrates a bishop who had a Sutton connection. ...

Thomas Bonell was not happy with the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield when they gave a lease to Mr. Dolphin and Mr. Homer a pool at Black Root in Sutton Park. In 1757 forty-eight acres of Sutton Park had been granted to Simon Luttrell of Fou...

The dam of Blackroot Pool in Sutton Park was completed in 1759. Lying as it did within Sutton Park, the corporation of Sutton, known as the Warden and Society, owned the site of the pool, but the pool really belonged to Joseph Duncumb of Moat Hous...

In 1762 the Gentleman’s Magazine published an article about Sutton Coldfield. The writer, calling himself “Incola”, observed “Some rivulets that take their rise in this park, feed several mills built in and near it; not onl...

Until 1812 the Roman road in Sutton Park had been the parish and county boundary, the part of the park to the west of Icknield Street being in Great Barr. When the commons of Great Barr and Little Aston were enclosed in 1812, this part of the park...

A notable Suttonian is the subject of a new biography by local author Andrew MacFarlane. Dr. George Bodington (1799-1882) is internationally famous for his innovations in medicine, but the new biography shows that he was also active in Sutton affa...