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Sutton Park History

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
  • Start date Start date
Dave I know where you mean. I wasn't sure there didn't seem to be enough bushes but it has been a long time ago :))
 
Brings back memories for me too, nan lived in Sutton, so have spent many hours in the park in the sun and snow, love the look of it in the snow.
Sue
 
Lovely views of the park Dave, must admit I wouldn't have been happy driving on that road though, having had a long slide this morning, my Espace now has low profile tyres and zero handling, so its essential journeys only for me!
Thanks for posting the video.
Sue
 
Ta, very light right foot, and I think a heavy engine over the drive wheels,

few pics from today
 

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Love a Sunday walk through our lovely park. We like to go about 09AM.
You can usually tell the time on our side - every passer by says hello before 9AM but after 9:30 - no body says hello any more :-)
Funny that.
 
It looks lovely Dave. I so miss going on walks, Michael can't walk far now because he has an arthritic foot and ankle. I used to love walking in the park it bought back so many memories of my childhood...wonderful..
 
Were going for a walk in the park today but Pete drove to the Beacon instead. Was disappointed. Going on Wednesday all being well.
 
I really appreciate the pictures and comments on Sutton Park,they bring back a lot of childhood memories, since I used to live within walking distance of the Parson&Clark Gate. I spent many hours in the park flying model planes on the golf course and walking through the woods. Since I have now lived in the USA for 60 plus years I like to read all the comments to see whats going on in jolly old England. Thankyou all.
Have a nice day, Wally.
Ps. If you are walking through the woods someday, see if you can catch a glimpse of me, I'll be there watching you.
 
I remember the fun fair, the crystal papace, and the miniture railway, as if it was yesterday, a great day out for us kids for little money.
paul
 
Went for a walk in the Park yesterday. Streetly gate. My least favorite part of the park. Jean.
 

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Looks exactly as I remember it Jean. Well it won't have changed in centuries I suppose. It looks like how I'd imagine a 'heath' to look, with clusters of gorse, a vew trees, very windswept. So is your dog - and so lovely too! Viv.
 
G G Jean said:
Went for a walk in the Park yesterday. Streetly gate. My least favorite part of the park. Jean.
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I like to park at the bottom of the meadow and take the path through the woods to Little Bracebridge, usually see a few birds you don't see too often down along the path and have a good chance of seeing the ponies either at the pool or just up the hill to the left.


bren
 
Thanks Viv. Bren will have to go further along the road next time. First time the cows were not there thank goodness. Jean.
 
Must find our old map and try it one day. Just don't like that gate when the cows are out. Used to ride from that gate across the park and one day on the way in a tourist from Canada asked if they could take a film of Misty and myself. Funny what you remember isn't it.
 
When you go in the Boldmere gate to the left is Powels pool - I am guessing the small hillocks betwwen this side of the pool and the grass path were where they dumped the soil etc when they worked on the pool - any ideas ? Theres lots of them just towards the woody bit.
 
Just off Thornhill Rd close to the Sutton Coldfield Golf Club was Manor Rd and half way along was a horse riding school owned by Colnol Leach (ex Indian Army ). I used to work there at the weekends mucking out and polishing saddles with saddle soap. Supprise, supprise the site now has houses built upon it.
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Welcome to the Forum, Redwood Rose.

I think that the Riding School had been at least partly encroached upon by housing at an even earlier date. Between the back of houses on Chester Road and those in Thornhill Road facing the park was farmland up until the 1950s. Behind our Chester Road house was a farmer's field regularly sowed with wheat, barley and so on. (My father was offered it in the 1930s at 6d - 2.5p - per sq. yard but dismissed the price as outrageous!) Beyond it and lying immediately behind the Thornhill Road houses was a field always known to me as The Riding School Field occupied, not surprisingly, by horses. This was obviously part of the Manor Road riding school and the land could also be accessed down a track leading off the Chester Road past a cottage, a few yards from the shops at the top of Manor Road.

The "Riding School Field" was sold off to McLean's in the mid 1950s and they built one of their earliest estates on it -"Thornhill Park". Glossy, modern houses with the "wow" factor at the time. Later the field nearer the Chester Road (accessed down a narrow, grassy track from the Chester Road with a sign proclaiming "Trespassers will be Prosecuted", although I always regarded the risk as minimal) was also built on and I bet the developers paid a bit more than sixpence a yard for it.

Parts of Streetly were then really very rural.

(All a bit off-topic but my excuse is that you could at least SEE Sutton Park from everywhere we are talking about.

Chris

PS
Because of some technical quirk this post appears in the name of Redwood Rose. However I (ChrisM) must confess to responsibilty.
In addition Redwood Rose's original post, to which the above is a reply, seems to have disappeared from this thread - but the quote at the beginning of this post is an exact transcription of the original.
 
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I use to race my bike around Sutton Park had one pretty good hill, does anyone have any pics of any bike races in the park in the early 50s? John Crump Parker. Co USA
 
Lovely memories Redwood Rose. I lived in Blackberry Lane from 1955-1974 it was a magical place to grow up. I went to Streetly Youth Club around the same time as you. The houses were very large on Hawthorn Road and Rosemary Hill Road. I often played with the children from a large family on the corner of Rosemary Hill Road they were American. This was the first time I saw a freezer at home and had ice cream from home. Sutton Park was my play ground we would go after school and weekends. I did my hairdressing apprenticeship at a shop on Clarence Road and we used to have wealthy business mens wives,footballers wives and one lady I loved was Mrs Bird from the Birds custard dynasty. She was a lovely eccentric lady who lived in Horton Manor House off Rosemary Hill Road. Roy Wood and Rodger Moore lived for a while on Rosemary Hill Road. I had a client who lived on Rosemary Hill Road who had a wonderful bungalow on the left opposite Sturmans Garage. One day a fuel tanker crashed into her bungalow and almost destroyed it. The bungalow had to be demolished and the ground cleared because of contamination. It was so awful for her and her husband. I am like you I get homesick when I visit as I had a wonderful childhood there.
 
I had a rellie who lived in a posh house on the site of what is now St Margaret's School on Rosemary Hill Road. The garden was huge, and I remember it was looked after by an elderly man and his son. I hated visiting there, as my rellie (no names, no pack-drill) was a total snob. The house was sold when the school expanded, and my rellie returned to her roots to live at the top end of The Broadway in Perry Barr, which left me to wonder if indeed she was really worth what she made out to be worth.......

I also went out with a girl whose family lived in an even larger house on Rosemary Hill Road. Her dad was an old Brummy made good thanks to the building trade, and a very nice bloke. I remember picking the girl up in my 1952 Morris Minor and having a (very innocent) drive around Sutton Park on Sunday afternoons. Boy, did I miss out there...!

G
 
Many years ago just after WW2 our gang often went to Sutton Park and looked at some POW camps, but these days I sometimes wonder whether I had imagined it.
On the Britainfromabove.org.uk website there is an excellent image HERE of Powells Pool and it shows a camp with huts inside a low fence, so maybe this is the camp I saw and my memory isn't playing tricks !
If you are registered and signed in for Britainfromabove.org.uk, the image can be zoomed into without much loss of resolution and a line of men can be seen standing by the huts, also crowds maybe queueing for a boat trip, and cows grazing in the field are clearly visible.
 
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