Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

“The greatest ornament and addition to the town of Sutton, is the house of William Jesson, Esq; most remarkable for its neatness of situation” - so wrote the anonymous “Agricola” in1762. The author is referring to Rookery H...

Four Oaks Hall was the only house in Victorian Sutton Coldfield to have a full complement of servants - butler, housekeeper, cook, valet, footman, postillion, groom, ladies maids, laundry maids, housemaids, stillroom maid, dairymaid, scullery maid...

From time to time, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a landowner would be allowed to take in some common land and convert it to agriculture. This was done at the south end of Green Lanes, then a remote part of Sutton, when twenty-five a...

Stonehouse Road in Boldmere was named after Stonehouse Farm. Stonehouse farm was established shortly after 1528, when Sutton Coldfield was incorporated by Royal Charter. The corporation, entitled the Warden and Society, took responsibility for Sut...

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...

Primary schools capable of accommodating all the children in the Parish of Sutton Coldfield opened their doors in 1826. However, there was no provision for secondary education, except a sort of ad hoc school run by Mr. Percy. The Warden and Societ...

John Leveson, son of a wealthy Wolverhampton family, married Amicia (Amy) Harman towards the end of the fifteenth century. Amy was living in Sutton Coldfield, at old Moor Hall, where her family consisted of her mother Joan, her brother Hugh and hi...

There is a memorial in Sutton Parish Church to Hugh Harman, who died in 1528. He was the brother of Bishop Vesey, and father of eight of the Bishop’s nieces and nephews. Hugh’s first wife was Ann, daughter of Humphrey Golson, a local g...

Novels set in the reign of King Henry VIII have recently been published to great acclaim, but over fifty years ago a novel published by a Sutton lady set in 1528 had only limited success. “Wild Rose of the King’s Chase” by Hilda ...

George Bidlake of Wolverhampton was the architect of Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, which opened in 1859. A clock tower originally completed the exuberant Italian Gothic building with its polychrome decoration (now the Masonic Hall) in Mill Street; t...