The district of Boldmere came into being around the middle of the 19^th century. When St Michael’s church was consecrated in 1857, the district was described as Boldmere near Oscott, Sutton Coldfield. The modern district forms a rough triangle whose sides are the Chester Road to the west, Sutton Park to the north and the Birmingham-Sutton railway line to the east.

This had been rural land for time immemorial on the western edge of the Coldfield, a large area of heathland covering some 6000 acres. It was of poor quality and considered fit only for grazing sheep. Adjoining were the many acres of the commons of Perry and Great Barr, also lying on pebble and sandstone conglomerates and poor agricultural land.

Boldmere Beginnings

Boldmere takes its name from a lake which lay in the Court Lane area until the 19^th century. Moor was a word used by the Anglo-Saxons to describe marshy land. The first element, may derive from Bald, an Anglo-Saxon personal name meaning Bold, or ‘bald’ in the sense that is was heathland and that no trees grew here.

In 1841 just eight families were recorded at the Baldmoor Lake, a hamlet along the Chester Road. Most heads of households were agricultural labourers, though Joseph Armishaw is named as a publican, possibly of the pub which was rebuilt in the 1930s as the New Oscott Tavern. In 1884 the pub had its own brewery on site. In 2009 the pub was bought by the adjacent Hall’s Garden Centre and opened as a café known as The Garden Room.

From the second half of the 18^th century wealthy landowners began to see opportunities in common land and open fields. If the majority of people who had rights over such land agreed, the land could be allocated to each in private ownership. The process was heavily weighted in favour of large landowners. Rights sometimes had to be proved by documentary evidence, something poorer people were unlikely to have; and plots had to be enclosed by fencing or hedging which poorer people could not afford.

Housing Development

In 1825 parliament approved an act enabling the enclosure of common lands in Sutton. Over 3500 acres were enclosed bringing a variety of blocks of land into private ownership. Maps of the period clearly show the division of the common lands and wastes into regular rectangular fields and these are still reflected in the lay-out of housing to this day. With the coming of the Birmingham-Sutton railway this was to lead inexorably to housing development.

Initially, like many rural areas on the periphery of Birmingham, a few large houses in extensive grounds were built for the seriously wealthy, usually people who had made their fortunes in the Midlands Metropolis, as Birmingham was known at the time. At Normanhurst opposite St Michael’s church in 1891, Henry Yates was an edge tool manufacturer in Birmingham; also on Boldmere Road, Francis Hawkes at Ashbourne was a hardware merchant; at Boldmere House Albert Dean was a carpet factor and cabinet maker. All are listed as employers and all had large households with servants.

Fernwood Grange was built for Birmingham jeweller, Alfred Antrobus in 1872, and was a particularly large house standing in 9 acres of grounds. Demolished before the Second World War, it stood at Fernwood Close off the Chester Road; the lodge still stands at the junction of Fernwood Road and the Chester Road. St Michael’s vicarage was not very far behind with its eight bedrooms and extensive gardens. Few of these large houses now stand, having been replaced by modern middle-class housing estates between or after the World Wars.

Arrival of the Railway

With the opening of railway stations at Wylde Green and Chester Road in 1862, the development of substantial middle-class housing proceeded rapidly. Commuters could be in central Birmingham 7 miles away in 20 minutes and return at night to their high-status suburb in the country well away from the smoke and grime of industrial town. Building continued until the 1930s when most of the available space had been taken up. Opportunities still crop up, however. In 2016 the vicarage of St Michael’s was demolished to make way for 48 retirement flats.

Boldmere Road was largely built up at its northern end by the end of the 19^th century. These were smaller houses, semi-detached and short terraces. Gradually many were converted into shops. Kelly’s Directory of 1892 lists just half a dozen shops here including a post office on the corner of Highbridge Road, a grocer’s and a butcher’s shop. Few of the original buildings survive, but this is now one of the more thriving local shopping centres in Birmingham, boasting almost a hundred businesses, the majority of which are independently owned.

The Gate Inn opened some time during the second half of the 19^th century, probably in a converted house. Known as the Boldmere Hotel, it was replaced by the present public house in 1939. It is now called The Harvester, one of 1700 pubs and restaurants owned by Mitchells & Butlers.  At the junction with Jockey Road the Sutton Park Hotel was also built around the mid-century to take advantage of the burgeoning interest in the use of Sutton Park as a leisure facility. The hotel was rebuilt early in the 20^th century. While the very high-status villas are long gone, Boldmere has retained its position as an attractive middle-class suburb.

St Michael, Boldmere

The Rector of Sutton Coldfield, Rev William Riland Bedford (1826–1905) was instrumental in setting up schools and churches in Sutton at a time when the town was expanding into the surrounding countryside. Much of this development was caused by the building of the Sutton Coldfield Branch Line from Birmingham New Street with stations opening at Chester Road, Wylde Green and Sutton in 1862. The line was extended to Lichfield in 1884 with stations at Blake Street and Four Oaks. Building was enabled by the parliamentary act enclosing the common in 1825. Land previously held in common was divided into private plots, which made building land more readily available. The Rector was able to pursue his ambitions for churches and schools by a Court of Chancery decision in 1825 to permit funds belonging to the Sutton Corporation to be used for educational and charitable purposes.

Riland Bedford’s method was to build a school room in one of the Sutton hamlets which would double as a church and to build the church at a later date. This he did first in the remoter areas of Sutton: Hill village, Little Sutton and at Walmley, with the church buildings following at St James, Hill in 1835 and at St John, Walmley in 1845. In the expanding south of his parish, he had a boys’ school built in Green Lanes in 1840, where church services were held, and a girls’ and infants’ school in Boldmere 1848 which was also used for church services. These were the predecessors of St Michael’s church.

However, there were problems with choosing a suitable site, with the architect, with the builder, with a less than proactive committee and, above all, with raising the money. But Riland Bedford was made of sterner stuff. He dealt with the problems almost single-handed and himself put up a third of the cost of the building. In 1856 the foundation stone was laid by the Countess of Bradford and the church was consecrated on St. Michael’s Day the following year by the Bishop of Worcester.

The church was built in 14th-century Decorated Gothic, a style much loved in the Victorian period and consisted of a nave, chancel and tower. However, as the district began to be built up, the need for more accommodation soon became pressing. In 1871 a north aisle was added, the project made easier because the original design had incorporated the possibility of expansion. On completion, the spire proved to be one foot higher than the architect’s design. The errant builder the put in a bill for an additional £30 for the work but refused by the building committee.

Further expansion took place in 1896 with renowned Birmingham architect J A Chatwin’s addition of a south aisle and vestries. A parish room was also built on Boldmere Road which is still very much in use.

In 1964, a fire destroyed practically all the church, except for the tower and the south aisle. The old south aisle facing Church Road was kept but the main body of the church was constructed in plain blue engineering brick. Internally, this has produced a practical, flexible space, but opinions differ as to the external appearance of the church.

In 1906 the church’s single bell was replaced with a peal of eight cast by Barwell’s of Great Hampton Street, Birmingham. One of the bellringers, Alfred Paddon Smith, later successfully rang two bells at the same time for a peal at Birmingham Cathedral lasting for over 3 hours. In 1950 he was elected Lord Mayor of Birmingham. Following the first ring of the bells at Boldmere the ringers were invited to a heavily laden table across the road at the house of Mr Appleby, the Mayor of Sutton Coldfield.

A band of experienced ringers must have been brought in from elsewhere for this inaugural peal lasting 2 hours 47 minutes. James Groves, the conductor was well known across the city for his prowess. They were impressed with the ‘go’ of the bells describing it as perfect, although they thought the sound of the bells in the ringing chamber was too loud. It is interesting that they thought the tone ‘full and rich’. In the 1890s Taylor’s of Loughborough had perfected scientific tuning, harmonising the notes and harmonics of a bell with the dominant note to produce an accurate melodious chord. They installed the first true harmonic ring in Birmingham at St Barnabas, Erdington 1904. Boldmere’s eight, however, were cast by Barwell’s in the old way giving a tonal quality that is 18th-19th century. In Birmingham most bells were recast during the 20th century with scientific tuning, leaving Boldmere bells a rare survival in the city.

St Nicholas’ Catholic Church

A Roman Catholic chapel was authorised to be built on Jockey Road in 1840. A small and simple building, it was designed by the architect A W N Pugin, who was at that time lecturer in Ecclesiastical Art and Architecture at the nearby St Mary’s College, New Oscott. The dedication was in honour of Nicholas Wiseman, Rector of Oscott College; he was later to become England’s first cardinal since the Reformation. The chapel was one of the first to be established in the Birmingham area subsequent to the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829. There was no resident priest at that time, the church being served by priests from New Oscott.

With only 50 seats the chapel soon proved too small for an expanding congregation. In 1929 a new church was built with a moveable sanitary screen to enable the building to double up as a school and parish hall. The third and present church building was opened in 1953; hanging in the porch is the bell from Pugin’s first chapel.