Sutton Coldfield Local History Research Group

In its pure form the feudal system allowed men to hold land from their feudal lord in return for services and other obligations, but from the beginning some of these services had been replaced by money rents. For example, in about 1200 Waleran Ear...

That the open field system of agriculture was followed in Sutton Coldfield in the Middle Ages is evident from documentary sources. The actual location of the open fields is harder to determine because the earliest large-scale maps of the area date...

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...

An analysis of the Sutton Parish Registers made in 1762 showed that in the twenty years to 1761 there were 747 baptisms and 694 burials, suggesting a small increase in population. However in 1774 the Rector, Richard Bisse Riland, took a census of ...

The early population history of Sutton Coldfield (from about 3,000 BC) is a story of gradual growth to a figure of about 1,500 followed by a sudden decline. Although Sutton Coldfield as an administrative area did not exist in Roman Britain, the ar...

Demolition of Hill Hook Mill and the adjoining miller’s house took place in 1970. For some years the site of the buildings and the nearby mill pool were left derelict and neglected, but in 1986 the pool was reinstated with a new dam, and the...

Until the development of steam power late in the eighteenth century, most machinery was driven by water power. Watermills, like any mechanical device, needed to be serviced and repaired to keep them in working order, and this was the miller’s resp...

In the late eighteenth century seven packs of hounds were kept within five miles of Sutton, and the favourite occupation of the local gentry was hunting. The Warden and Society of Sutton decided each year which master of foxhounds should have the ...

Knowing he was dying, Thomas Clifton of Sutton Coldfield made his will on the eighth of November 1684, and he was buried five days later, on November thirteenth 1684. Francis Clifton, son of Thomas, was the executor of the will, and in order to pr...

The Manor of Sutton Coldfield was a royal manor belonging to King Henry I from 1100 until 1126. King Henry loved to hunt, and made a large park specially for conserving and hunting his favourite fallow deer at another of his manors, Woodstock in O...