kat, I hope this will be helpful to you. Len.
Contents
SHELDON
MANORS CHURCH ADVOWSON CHARITIES The Sheldon Bread Charity. Footnotes
SHELDON
Acreage: 2,620.
Population: 1911, 451; 1921, 526.
Under the Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield Order, 1931, the greater part of Sheldon was transferred to the City of Birmingham. Subsequently what remained was divided between Coleshill and Solihull, so that the civil parish of Sheldon has ceased to exist.
The old parish is bounded on the north by the River Cole (
fn. 1) and on the east for the most part by the Kingshurst and Hatchford brooks. The church and village lie in the south of the parish, connected by several small roads with the road from Coventry to Birmingham, which crosses the parish near its southern edge, entering it by Hatchford Bridge. About a mile north of this bridge the Birmingham and Rugby line of the L.M.S. Railway enters Sheldon, near Eastern Bridge (formerly Easthall) and Mackadown, crossing the parish in a north-westerly direction. On the western boundary, a mile west of Mackadown, is the rectangular earthwork known as Kent's Moat. (
fn. 2)
Mackadown Farm has walls of cemented brickwork probably of the 18th century, but it has a 17th-century timber-framed barn by the road-side.
Another farm-house, about ¼ mile north-east of it, has some 17th-century timber-framing in its east front, and a barn mostly of brick also preserves a few earlier timbers.
Sheldon Hall is a long and shallow house about 2 miles north of the church. It consists of a main block of two stories and attics built of red and black bricks with stone dressings, dating from the first half of the 16th century. It contains the original ground-floor hall facing south with a square projecting bay at the east end of its front, and a wide screens-passage and projecting porch-wing west of it, the main wall forming a recess between the two. West of this block is a cross-wing, and east of it a pair of similar crosswings with rough-casted walls, probably all of timber-framing and of
c. 1600. The gabled fronts of the three are in the same plane as those of the two earlier and narrower projections.
The original part of the south elevation has moulded string-courses marking the floor-levels, and the heads of the porch-wing and the bay are gabled high up so that their ridges are level with that of the main block. The windows are plain square-headed mullioned openings of stone, with transoms to the ground and first floors. Of the pair of three-lights to each story of the main wall the upper eastern window is blocked. The bay is of four lights on the front and one light in the western return wall on each floor. The porch-wing has a four-light window, now blocked. The stone entrance to the porch has an elliptical arch. In the inner doorway is an original oak nail-studded door; it has a drop ring-handle, with an ornamental plate, which is also a knocker on a lower plate and knob.
The back wall of this block is of red and black brickwork (unplastered inside the hall) and has a projecting chimney-stack with two pairs of diagonal shafts, two with diagonal pilasters (or star-shaped in plan). In this the lower hall has a 9 ft.-wide fire-place with stone jambs and an oak lintel. The fire-place was in the middle of the north side of the hall but a later partition now cuts off a space equal with the east bay. The ceiling is divided by early-16th-century moulded beams. The original timber-framed partition with a moulded top beam remains between the hall and entrance-passage west of it. The upper hall has a late-16th-century stone fire-place with moulded jambs and flat three-centred arch, and there is a second-floor fire-place.
The later rough-casted wings have projecting gable-heads on shaped brackets. The oak mullioned and transomed windows resemble the stone windows. The windows to the east wings are modern, except an upper one at the back. Both east and west walls have brick projecting chimney-stacks of
c. 1600. The western of these chimney-stacks is gathered in at the sides with crow-stepping and has two shafts with V-shaped pilasters. The eastern has a group of three and another of two diagonal shafts with pilasters. This stack has, in the lower story, a moulded stone Tudor fire-place, and, in the upper, another differently moulded. There are several moulded oak doorways in the wings, and one from the original entrance passage into the west wing has a 17th-century panelled door. In the wing east of the hall is a 17th-century staircase from the first to the second floor, but the lower part has been replaced by a modern stair.
Around the house are the remains of a moat of irregular four-sided plan; the south side is now filled in.
The White Hart Inn at Tile Cross, a little south of Sheldon Hall, has some 17th-century framing in the south-east front.
Outmoor Farm, ¼ mile west of the Hall, is an early-to mid-17th-century house with walls mostly of timber-framing covered with rough-cast. It is a fairly tall building of two stories and has two gables on each face. The windows have modern frames. On each side is a chimney-stack with two pairs of conjoined octagonal shafts.