Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

Langley Hall was an important place in the thirteenth century, home of the De Bereford family, statesmen who often had to travel. Bulls Lane and Ox Leys Road were their routes to Coleshill, Warwick, and London, while in the other direction their r...

Viewed from Coleshill Street, the east elevation of Holy Trinity Parish Church can be seen to have three large windows, the central one is in the oldest part of the building, the Chancel, while the flanking ones light the two side chapels. The cha...

Richard Ashford was a yeoman farmer in Maney in the 1640s. It was a mixed farm, with cattle and sheep as well as crops growing in the fields. Ashford had two horses to do the work of the farm, but he also kept a team of four oxen - for centuries t...

Richard Riland became Rector of Sutton Coldfield on the death of his father at the age of 25 in 1720. He had been born in the vast old medieval rectory, which his father John had moved into on becoming Rector in 1690 - it was demolished and replac...

William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford, 1826-92, became Rector of Sutton Coldfield in 1850. He soon became a member of the Warden and Society of Sutton, and served as Warden (equivalent to Mayor) in 1854 and 1855. These were turbulent times for the to...

“He does not account for the pannage of the Duchess of Buckingham’s pigs in the King’s park at Eachelhurst this year” - so wrote John Bailly, the Bailiff of Sutton Coldfield, in his accounts for the year 1480. In that year ...

The Corporation (Warden and Society) of Sutton Coldfield held its monthly meetings in the Moot Hall. By the 1850s the ancient structure was showing signs of collapse, and the Warden’s Minutes for 1854 show increasing concern; in April it was...

The River Tame still forms the boundary between Sutton and Water Orton, as it did in 1824 when Mr. Harris the Commissioner made his survey. It is probable that early Anglo-Saxon settlers, using the rivers to penetrate to the heart of England, es...

Local historian Norman Evans worked on a series of historical maps of Sutton Coldfield, based on informed guesswork. In drawing up his map of Sutton in Saxon times, he had to decide which trackways may have been in use then, when Birmingham was a ...

Britain was part of the Roman Empire for over 300 years, a period when every acre of land had to be exploited in order to support the 50,000-strong army and 50,000-strong civil service required to run the country, as well as sending taxes to Rome....