Mills of Sutton Coldfield
Many mills have been recorded as existing in the Sutton Coldfield area, the earliest being a corn (wheat) mill belonging to the lord of the manor in 1126. Most of these early mills were water powered, Maney and Langley being the only two windmills in the area. The remains of a horse mill have also been discovered in the northern part of Sutton Coldfield.
Several of these water mills were built in Sutton Park, using the many small streams for power. To maintain a water supply to these mills, mill ponds were created and these still survive as the pools of Sutton Park. Besides corn milling, many other industries also relied on the local water power, including spade forging, steel rolling, boring gun barrels, leather dressing, cloth fulling, button polishing and wood sawing. Some mills changed their trade during their lifetime, two mills each having three trades before becoming derelict. Even the area that is occupied by the Sutton Coldfield Gracechurch Centre was once a mill pond. This provided water for Town Mill, a corn (wheat) mill, with the Parade, previously called The Dam, later built on the line of the mill pond dam.
New Hall Mill, downstream of Sutton Park and Sutton Coldfield, originally abstracted water from the Ebrook, often referred to as Plant's Brook, via a 'leat' or man-made channel that fed into the mill pond. Based on extensive research by Ken Williams into the lost mills of the area, the Map of the Mills of Sutton Coldfield shown below, dated 1978, shows how the water could have been used many times by mills upstream before it was abstracted at New Hall Mill.
The map shows the large number of mills that originally existed in the Sutton Coldfield area. Corn = wheat milling, Grist = animal feed.
- Bracebridge - cloth fulling
- Blackroot - leather dressing
- Park House - blade mill
- Longmoor - corn / leather / button polishing
- Powell's / Old Blade Mill - spade forging
- Wyndley - steel rolling / sawmill
- Town - corn milling
- Fordrift - sawmill / grist milling
- Skinner's Pool - fur and skin dressing
- Oughton's - boring gun barrels
- New Hall - corn milling - later only grist
- Penn's - wire drawing / corn / cloth fulling
- Plant's - wire drawing / forging
- Hill Hook - corn milling
- Langley (Post) Windmill - corn milling
- Langley Watermill - corn milling
- Maney (Post) Windmill - corn milling
- Redicroft Horse Mill - oatmeal
Sutton Park, with many of the original mill ponds and archaeological remains from the Roman times and earlier, is now an important National Nature Reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is widely used for recreation.