The warden and society and, after 1886, the town council sold licences to businessmen who wished to exploit the commercial potential of the pools in Sutton Park.

This involved refreshments, the hiring of rowing boats, skating and angling. This week I am going to look at angling in Sutton Park.

Mostly anglers bought their own permits to fish in one of the pools, either paying a daily rate or for a sea- son ticket.

There were, however, shared permits. In the 1820s, for example, the landlord of the Duke Inn Thomas Brentnall arranged a subscription list amongst his customers to share the cost of fishing in Wyndley Pool.

Later in the century the Sutton Coldfield Piscatorial Society was established.

Its members met at the Gate Inn in Mill Street and it secured the right to fish in Keeper's Pool, which it planned to stock with trout. In its first year of existence it recruited 42 members, but it was never a thriving society. It was dissolved in 1902 and, after a brief revival, was soon dissolved again.

In the early 1860s Charles James Phillips, who owned a hotel in New Street in Birmingham, held the licences for Windley and Blackroot Pools. He claimed that he was making Wyndley suitable for fishing for the first time in 40 years.

Later that decade we find John Knibb of Wylde Green holding the licences for Wyndley and Powell's Pools. At the end of the nineteenth century William Bowers and Charles Townsend were the proprietors of, respectively, Blackroot and Bracebridge Pools, and a group of Sutton businessmen had established the Powell's Pool Company. The daily rate to "fish at Blackroot was 2s and at Bracebridge 2s 6d. Whilst free
angling was offered in other places, charges to fish in the pools of Sutton Park continued into the twentieth century.

Angling was popular with both men and women. Part of the appeal was reconnecting with nature, but there was great satisfaction when, for example, a large pike was landed. In 1906 a pike weighing 15lb was caught at Bracebridge. In 1933 a pike measuring 42 and weighing 19lb was caught in Longmoor Pool. It was claimed to be the largest pike ever caught in Sutton Park.

For more articles about local history by Step hen Roberts see the website of the Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council.

Associate Professor
Stephen Roberts