Sutton Coldfield has a history stretching back more than 2,000 years – from the Roman soldiers who marched along Icknield Street through what is now Sutton Park, to the Tudor bishop who secured the town’s Royal Charter from Henry VIII, to the Victorian families who shaped the town we know today. This page is your guide to the key moments and stories in Sutton Coldfield’s past.
Roman Sutton Coldfield
Long before the town existed, the area was crossed by one of Roman Britain’s major roads. Icknield Street – also known as Ryknild Street – ran from Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire northward to the Roman fort at Wall (Letocetum) in Staffordshire. A significant section of this road passes directly through what is now Sutton Park, and it remains one of the best-preserved stretches of Roman road in the English Midlands.
The Royal Charter of 1528
The most important moment in Sutton Coldfield’s history came in 1528 when Bishop John Vesey, a local man who had become Bishop of Exeter and a confidant of Henry VIII, successfully petitioned the king to grant the town a Royal Charter. The charter incorporated the town as a borough, gave local residents rights to Sutton Park as common land, and conferred the Royal prefix that the town still carries today.
The Murder of Mary Ashford (1817)
One of the most extraordinary legal cases of the nineteenth century unfolded near Erdington in 1817. Mary Ashford, a 20-year-old woman from the area, was found drowned in a flooded pit after attending a dance. The subsequent trial – and the extraordinary medieval legal procedure that followed the acquittal – left a lasting mark on English legal history.
The World Wars
Sutton Coldfield, like every British town, sent its men to serve in both the First and Second World Wars. The war memorial in Sutton Park records those who did not return. Local research through the Imperial War Museum’s records and Birmingham Archives has documented many individual stories from the town’s wartime history.
Sutton Coldfield Cemetery
Opened in 1893, Sutton Coldfield Cemetery on Rectory Road is the town’s principal burial ground and an important resource for local genealogy and family history research. Its Victorian Gothic chapels and well-maintained grounds are notable in their own right.
Read: Cemetery History and Ancestor Research
History of the British Post Box
One of the more surprising pages of local history relates to the humble post box. Sutton Coldfield has connections to the history of the British letterbox – Victorian-era post boxes survive across the town, and the history of Royal Mail’s collecting boxes is documented in surprising detail.