Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

There are sixty-four names under the heading “Sutton in Colefeld” in a list of taxpayers called the Lay Subsidy Roll of 1329. This was a time when surnames as we know them were coming into use, but half of the names were still descriptive. There w...

There is some evidence that Great Sutton (the part of Sutton centred on High Street) was a farming community in 1150 with two or three large open fields divided up into strips of land. Each farmer had ten or more half-acre strips in each field, pa...

A third railway station in Sutton, Sutton Park Station, was built by the Midland Railway. I t opened on July the first 1879. A contemporary guidebook to Sutton Coldfield describes the journey from Birmingham to Sutton Coldfield along the Midland R...

Bishop Vesey spent a fortune on improvements to Sutton Coldfield, including paving the streets of the town at a cost of £40.3s.8d. The streets paved were High Street, Coleshill Street and Mill Street, the weekly market being held at the junction o...

There were over 100 cottages in Sutton in the eighteenth century, most of them being home to farm workers, but there were also a number of craftsmen living in there. Weaving was a traditional cottage industry before the Industrial Revolution, and ...

The idea of being able to travel back in time is an attractive one to writers and film-makers, being the concept behind a number of best-sellers and award-winning films. Historians often use a different kind of time travel, using their imagination...

The walls of New Hall in Sutton Coldfield are adorned with carved monograms, mottos and shields. One of these plaques has five sets of initials on it and the date 1796; all the initials end in C for Chadwick; some family history will help to expla...

The Parade in Sutton Coldfield was christened in 1880 - before that it was known as The Dam. For many centuries it was indeed a dam, forming a large reservoir extending beyond the present shopping centre and railway embankment, fed by the E Brook....

The Parade in Sutton Coldfield was christened in 1880 - before that it was known as The Dam. For many centuries it was indeed a dam, forming a large reservoir fed by the streams flowing out of Sutton Park. The pool, which extended beyond the prese...

Sarah Holbeche was born in 1802 at Ivy House, now no. 20 High Street, Sutton Coldfield. Then, Sarah recalled, in 1804 “My father and mother with their one child moved to what is now Mrs. Sadler’s House (now 36 High Street) where Mary, Vincent, Tho...