Sutton Coldfield Archives - Birmingham History

Highway Robbery in Sutton Coldfield

October 26, 2017 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

‘There is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as in England; insomuch, that few venture to go alone in the country, excepting in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night.’

These words were written by an unknown diplomat from Venice who travelled in England in 1497. The vast ‘waste’ around Sutton Coldfield was one such country area where travellers feared to go.

In the following century, Sutton Coldfield’s great benefactor, Bishop Vesey made attempts to offer some protection for travellers. As well as his own mansion, Moor Hall, Vesey also owned an estate at Canwell, close to the London road. This was a desolate area well known for highway robberies.

The bishop built a small stone house on Weeford Road and here he installed some of his servants as a deterrent to highway robber and thieves. Much altered, the house is now called Vesey Grange and still stands. Another of Vesey’s stone houses, High Heath cottage, built for the same purpose, also still stands about a mile to the south-east on Withy Hill Road. And there may have been others.

Not far from Vesey Grange, on Slade Road, is a small house known as Muffins Den, believed to date from the late 15th century. Adjacent is the Plough & Harrow public house, whose predecessor stood on the same spot in the 18th century. The inn and Muffin’s Den were reputedly hide-outs of highwaymen who preyed on travellers in this area.

The well travelled London road was less than a mile away from Muffin’s Den and lay in the county of Staffordshire. Having committed a robbery, the highwayman would head back across the county boundary into Warwickshire where the Sherriff of Staffordshire had no authority.

The Murder of Thomas Eastham

The parish register of Holy Trinity church of 1728 records a fatal attack on one Thomas Eastham who was travelling south along the London road. He broke his journey at the Canwell Gate Inn where he met Edward Powers, who kindly offered to show him a short cut. Powers took the unsuspecting traveller off the London road, along Weeford Road and down Holly Lane (now Lindridge Road) where he robbed and murdered him.

Powers was well known locally as a character of ill repute and was soon arrested and taken to Warwick. He was tried at the Assizes, found guilty and hanged. His body was returned to be hung on a gibbet at Fox Hill on Little Sutton Common close to the scene of the murder.

Dick Turpin hereabouts – probably not!

A number of West Midlands’ pubs claim associations with England’s most infamous highwayman, Dick Turpin. However, none are likely to be true. There is nonetheless a link to Turpin in the person of Tom King. Born in Stonnall just 6 miles north of Sutton Coldfield, he became a partner-in-crime of Turpin’s, but in the Epping Forest area. It was said that Tom King actually was the owner of the cottage known as Muffin’s Den and that he and Turpin used to enjoy a pint together at the Plough & Harrow next door.

The story goes that Turpin, seeing King riding a fine horse and dressed like a gentleman, attempted to rob him. King, a highwayman of national repute, laughed in his face and the encounter concluded by the pair becoming partners. King it was who persuaded Dick Turpin to adopt the same pursuit and not the life of random thieving and robbery he had followed hitherto. Turpin’s new accomplice, also known as ‘Captain’ Tom King was renowned for his cavalier and carefree character, attributes later associated with Turpin himself.

Tom King was to come to a bad end at the hands of his co-conspirator. In 1737 Dick Turpin had stolen a fine horse, which he christened Black Bess, and stabled it at a London inn. The next day, when King came to collect the horse, he was arrested by a constable. Turpin, who had been hiding nearby, shot at the officer but his bullets hit King instead.

Mortally wounded, King revealed the location of Turpin’s hide-out and the latter headed north. There is an unlikely story that Turpin called at the New Oscott Tavern (now The Garden Room of Hall’s Garden Centre), before heading to York where he was arrested, convicted of horse theft and hanged in 1739.

So, no Dick Turpin hereabouts, but plenty of other rogues to make life uncomfortable for the 18th century traveller.

Bishop Vesey’s Stone Houses

October 18, 2017 by William Dargue 1 Comment

On returning to his home town in 1524 for the funeral of his mother, Bishop John Vesey found Sutton Coldfield in a poor state. As Bishop of Exeter and a long-standing confidant of King Henry VIII, Vesey had both the influence and wealth to be able make serious changes for the town’s benefit.

He had the King grant Sutton a charter of incorporation in 1528 which put the local government of the town in the hands of a warden and 24 prominent residents known as the Warden and Society of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.

Vesey rebuilt the aisles of the Holy Trinity church and installed an organ, he built a market place and restored the market, paved the streets of the town, and had two stone bridges built – the one at Minworth survives. He had Sutton Park gifted to the residents of Sutton for common use; he founded and endowed the free grammar school, the foundation of which also still survives in a building dating from 1729, and he built 51 stone houses of which five survive.

Moor Hall Farm

John Harman alias Vesey was born between 1452 and 1465 at Moor Hall Farm which stands on Moor Hall Drive. The farm is documented as early as 1434, although the present building seems to date from the 16th century. It may be that Vesey had the original, probably a timber-framed house, rebuilt in sandstone when he returned to Sutton Coldfield in the 1530s. The Bishop is known to have looked after his poor kinsmen and Moor Hall Farm may well have been occupied by one of them.

For his own residence, Vesey bought some 40 acres of land close to the farm where he had been born and here he built a Tudor mansion. It was a three storey house with over 20 rooms. Like the King and Vesey’s friend Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who had respectively built Nonesuch Palace and Hampton Court in brick, Vesey had his new Moor Hall built in brick, a newly fashionable and expensive material.

Bishop Vesey was often absent from his new home in London or Exeter but, when he stayed here, he certainly lived in style keeping 140 liveried servants, and it was here that entertained Henry VIII. The present Moor Hall, now a hotel, was built in 1903 by Colonel Edward Ansell of Ansell’s Brewery fame, replacing Vesey’s house.

However, rich and well connected though he was, Bishop Vesey did not forget his family still living in the Sutton area. He built for poor family members a number of stone houses. This building material was unusual. The dwellings of almost all people in this area at the time was timber, mud and thatch. Only churches and houses of high status such as manor houses were built of stone. The Vesey houses, believed to have been 51 in number, though smaller, were built to the same pattern as the rebuilt Moor Hall Farm.

When visiting Sutton in 1538, Henry VIII’s antiquary John Leland wrote:
He buildyd dyvars praty howsys of stone in the forest, and plantyd his pore kynesmen in them, allotynge ground conveniently unto the howsys, for the whiche the tenaunts bere the Kynge a mean rent.

Remarkably, nearly 500 years later, five of these houses survive.

The Vesey houses are well-built with square blocks of sandstone. They are of two storeys, the upper floor accessed by a spiral staircase near the entrance. Upstairs and downstairs there are usually two rooms divided by a wooden partition. At each end of the rectangular building is a stone chimney stack. The roof was tiled.

Not only are the houses unusual for having been built of stone in this area, but also that they had chimneys and an upstairs floor. The usual style of domestic architecture was single-storey, timber-framed with a hole in the thatched roof to allow smoke from the open hearth to escape, making an upstairs floor impossible. Vesey may have built in stone for speed. Using standard sized blocks made building quicker than creating timber frames which had to be custom made. It is likely that he employed local labour, but he may well have brought a master stonemason with him from Exeter Cathedral to plan and oversee the work.

High Heath Cottage

The smallest of the houses is High Heath Cottage, which lies off Withy Hill Road in an area which is still completely rural and remote. This house has a single room in each floor.

Old Stone House

At the bottom of Maney Hill Road, now close the centre of the town is the Old Stone House. This is one of the largest to survive and is probably the least altered.
A large oak bar secures the front door and upstairs is what may be an arrow slit with a stone seat for the watchman. Marks under the seat may indicate where arrows were sharpened on the sandstone.

Because of the narrow stone spiral stair, a coffin drop is provided whereby a number of floorboards can be removed to allow the body of a deceased to be lowered.

The Bishop encouraged his relations and other locals to take up weaving kersey, a thick strong cloth made from inferior wool and a good additional source of income for smallholders or labourers. On the ground floor is a large, north-facing window where the loom would have stood.

Vesey Grange

In the north of Sutton at Hill Common, a much altered Vesey house stands on Weeford Road. It is believed to be the first house to have been built in this area of ‘waste’.

Vesey was keen to find employment for his kinsmen and enclosed land around here for the purpose of keeping sheep whose wool would then be used for the weaving of kersey. There is evidence in Sutton of sheep farming from the early 14th century when the chapel of Sutton manor house was known to have been dedicated to St Blaise, the patron saint of wool-combers. It is not known whether the Bishop was further encouraging the keeping of sheep or reviving a practice that had died out.

The Warwickshire antiquarian, Sir William Dugdale, writing in 1651, maintained that the house was built for the prevention of highway robberies. This was a desolate area with no human habitation and Vesey installed his own servants in the house for the protection of travellers. The house eventually became a labourer’s cottage and was later extended with three more small brick cottages inhabited by working people until the end of the 19th century. However, by 1911 the stone house had been extended to the rear and the brick cottages were converted into rooms and stables for a wealthy family.

Warren House Farm

Hidden behind the mid-20th century houses on Walmley Road is Warren House Farm whose sandstone build is rougher and less regular than the other Vesey houses.

The house was altered and extended during the 17th century. However, the granary associated with the farm may be even older than the house itself.

Vesey House / Ford Keeper’s Cottage

In the New Hall valley, down by the stream known as the Ebrook (also known as Plantsbrook) is a stone Vesey cottage which was the ford keeper’s house. It is hard to believe that this small, now canalised stream ever presented a problem to travellers.

However, the ford here was one of few firm river crossings in this wide marshy valley and the ford keeper’s duty was not to see people safely across but to collect tolls from travellers. The house has been relatively little altered since the 16th century.

What happened to the other 46 Vesey houses?

Neither the location nor the fate of the remaining Vesey houses is known. It is more remarkable that five have stood for 500 years than that the others seem to have disappeared without trace. Buildings that survive for this length of time are almost invariably houses of high status and not the houses of the common folk. Presumably, over time, the Vesey houses fell into neglect and disuse. However, it is pretty certain that the well-cut stones were reused and they may survive as the foundations of later buildings across the area.

Sutton Park

September 24, 2017 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

For almost 500 years Sutton Park was not devoted to the pleasures of local people, but exclusively to deer and their aristocratic hunters.

The park was originally part of the Forest of Cannock, which covered most of the area between the rivers Tame and Trent and had been set up as a royal forest by William the Conqueror; Norman kings set aside vast areas of the country for hunting. Forest law protected deer (fallow, red and roe deer), wild boar and the woodland that sustained them with severe penalties for those caught transgressing. Forests were hunting areas specifically reserved for the king and, by royal invitation, the nobility.

The southern part of the Forest was given in 1126 by Henry I to Roger de Beaumont, 2^nd Earl of Warwick and his descendants with the right to introduce fallow deer, a species brought to England by King William. Known as Sutton Chase and centred on the town of Sutton Coldfield, it lay north and west of the River Tame extending from Great Barr to Kingsbury.

By 1423 the Earl of Warwick still owned the Chase and feasted on its venison, but by this time he had leased to one of his officers.

Bishop Vesey Takes Over

In 1499, under Henry VII, Edward Plantagenet, 17^th Earl of Warwick was executed for treason and the Chase was appropriated by the Crown. But in 1528, thanks to the persuasion of Bishop Vesey, Henry VIII granted ownership of part of the Chase to the newly created Warden and Society of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.

Vesey abolished the forest law and had the park fenced so that it could be used by local people for grazing their livestock. It was this area that became what is now Sutton Park. Residents could ‘hunt, fish and fowl there, with dogs, bows and arrows, and with other engines for deer, stags, hares, foxes and other wild beasts.’

Remarkably, if you know where to look, there is still clear evidence on the ground of the banks and ditches built to enclose the deer; deer were too expensive a commodity to be allowed to escape. Inside the present boundary fence, on the north, west and east sides, can be seen banks and ditches originally 5 metres wide, known as the park pale. The enclosure has a perimeter of some 7 miles, the earthworks of which are believed to date from the foundation of the park in 1126.

As deer are able to jump 6 metres horizontally and 3 metres vertically, this had to be a substantial barrier. The bank would be up to 4 metres high and topped with a wooden fence. On the inside would be a steep-sided ditch on a similar scale to the bank. Inside the park, compartments can also still be seen delineated by banks and ditches, areas where deer were kept out to enable coppiced woodland to be cultivated.

The Driffold’s Origins

The medieval deer park is also evidenced by a place name, recalled in the street name ‘The Driffold’. Marked on 19^th-century maps, the area east of Wyndley Pool in Sutton Park is named as Driffold.

The bank and ditch at Hollyhurst, much worn since 1126, designed to keep the deer from straying.

From Anglo-Saxon times, Sutton manor house stood on top of Manor Hill near the junction of Wyndley Lane and Driffold. Never used by a resident lord as a manor house, it was effectively the hunting lodge of the park. And below it, an enclosure within the park is believed to be a corral dating from the 12th century. Defined by a bank and ditch and semi-circular in shape, it covers an area of approximately 1 square kilometre. Nearby is another similar enclosure dating from the 14th century.

The enclosures are likely to have been ‘drive folds’, corrals into which the deer were driven, from which the name ‘driffold’ derives. Deer were kept for hunting as sport, but they were also kept for food and as high status gifts, and deer may have been kept here for the residents of the manor house. And for hunting purposes the deer may have been rounded up at the driffold and set free as the hunters set out, to give them a better ‘sporting’ chance of a kill.

Muntjac deer – Image reproduced from “Our Warwickshire” website © John Radley
http://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk

Although Bishop Vesey abolished the deer park as such in 1528, deer have returned to Sutton Park. However, these are not the medieval species but muntjac, originating from China, an exotic escapee from Woburn Abbey in 1900 which has become naturalised in Britain. Standing less than 50 cm (20ins) at the shoulder and weighing under 20 kg (44lbs), this is a small shy animal, rarely seen but more common even in city areas than might be thought.

Gibbet Hill

June 26, 2017 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

Water colour by London artist Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) at the Yale Center for British Art digitised by Google Art Project. Work in the public domain.

Long distance travel in the 17^th and 18^th centuries was often a dangerous affair. Travellers along the Chester Road were rightfully fearful of whom they might meet in the wild ‘waste’ of heathland known as The Coldfield which lay to the west of Sutton town. It was the haunt of highwaymen, vagabonds and thieves. Such was the danger that in the Middle Ages a cottage had been built at Pype Hayes by the Earl of Warwick where two armed men offered some protection to travellers along that stretch of the Chester Road.

The road had been so-named from 1759 when it was turnpiked by sections from London to Chester. It had been a main route from the south-east to the north-west of England from prehistoric times but was increasingly used as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace. The London-Chester stage coach operated from 1659, taking two days to make the journey with an overnight stop at Castle Bromwich, and ran until about 1840 when it was put out of business by the railways.

Easy Pickings

For highwaymen there were easy pickings on Sutton Chase. The rewards could be good, but the penalty when captured was the ultimate, death by hanging – or worse. Hence the name Gibbet Hill.

Marked on 19^th-century maps near the Chester Road at New Oscott, Gibbet Hill is the rising land where Welford Road and Maxstoke Road are now located. It is thought that here in 1729 a merchant from London was murdered and his attacker subsequently hanged on the hill overlooking Chester Road where his crime had been committed. But not only hanged, but gibbetted.

Crime and Punishment

‘For better preventing the horrid Crime of Murder’, the Murder Act of 1751 forbade the bodies of murderers to be buried. The cadaver could either be sold to surgeons for dissection or be gibbetted. This was a procedure whereby, after execution by hanging, the criminal’s body was placed in a cage-like structure hanging from a gallows usually at a crossroads near the scene of the crime and left there indefinitely as a warning to potential murderers. The denial of a Christian burial and the consequent inevitability of an eternity in Hell did indeed strike terror into convicted murderers, but appears not to have been a deterrent to prospective murderers.

The punishment was not extensively meted out. By the time the Act was effectively repealed, less than two men a year had suffered the indignity of gibbetting.

As with public executions, gibbetting drew huge crowds, often numbering thousands. However, for local people the excitement would soon wear off. The rotting corpse would stink for months, it would be constantly picked at by birds and the creaking and clanging of the iron cage on windy winter nights would be a disturbance for decades.

The known details of Gibbet Hill at New Oscott are meagre. However, in common with all such place names, the gibbet was a significant and gruesome feature of local life over many years.

Beggar’s Bush

June 22, 2017 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

At the junction of Jockey Road and Chester Road in New Oscott, there once grew a hawthorn bush marking the point where met the parish boundaries of SuttonColdfield, Aldridge and Perry. The Ordnance Survey map of 1890 shows ‘The Bush’ public house here.

The story goes that it was under this bush that an unknown beggar lay and breathed his last. The responsibility to pay for the burial of a pauper lay with the authorities of the parish where the individual died. As the bush was on the boundary of each of the parishes and none of them would take responsibility for the burial, the poor man was buried where he died, hence the name, Beggar’s Bush.

Not the only Beggar’s Bush

The original bush was removed during road widening in the 1930s but a weather beaten hawthorn remained in the centre of the island until it was replaced by traffic lights in the 1980s.

Beggar’s Bush is a surprisingly common place name with at least 120 instances at the last count, the earliest dating from 16^th century. At that time, the term referred to ne’er-do-wells who brought about their own demise through idleness and had to go to the ‘beggar’s bush for their lodging’.

Shelter for Vagabonds

The Elizabethan era saw its fair share of recessions which created large-scale unemployment and forced numbers of people to the roads to seek for work. Laws were enacted at that time to try to distinguish between the deserving poor and folk who were able to work but would not. Such ‘sturdy beggars’ were to be whipped and returned to their own parishes.

It was the duty of each parish to enforce these laws. However, if a beggar could find shelter beyond the parish boundary, he was outside the jurisdiction of that parish. And so it may be, that beggars’ bushes were on parish boundaries where vagabonds gathered to beg for alms in a no-man’s-land beyond the reach of the parish officers.

There was a a public house here in 1841 which had been rebuilt by 1861, and the current ‘Beggar’s Bush’ dates from the 1930s. It has always been a good location on a crossroads of one of the main roads from London to the north-west of England.

The image, showing a romanticised beggar under the Beggar’s Bush, is from Neil Howlett’s website ‘Beggars Bush’ and used under a Creative Commons licence.