WALMLEY
Please click/tap all blue links, PDF and documents to see information
Walmley is proud to be the home of a wide range of sporting institutions, offering first class activities to the wider community, such as;
Please click/tap the following blue links below to open and see information.
Exclusive Hotels
Hotels offering exceptional quality accommodation, providing settings for fairy tale weddings, and facilities to satisfy the most discerning of visitors to our village.
Ramada Hotel is unfortunately now closed as a hotel
Various Local Groups
These can be found on facebook
Friends of Jones Wood
Friends of Stevens Pool
Friends of Walmley Village
Historic Walmley
B76 - Grid reference SP135935 Warmelegh
Credit to: William Dargue - A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames
Warmelegh is Old English for a 'warm forest clearing', warm leah. The original farming settlement was likely to have been situated on a sheltered south-facing slope, though the exact location of this is unknown - at the top of Eachelhurst Road perhaps? The name is recorded spelled with an 'r' as Warmley into the late 19th century. Walmley lies around the junction of Walmley Road, Walmley Ash Road and Penns Lane, where a 20th century shopping centre has built up, known locally as Walmley Village. The rest of the district was extensively built up with good quality housing after world war II, and development continues to the present day. To the east of Walmley was designated as green belt land which was layed to farming. However Birmingham City Council, after a long battle with the residents of Walmley through
Project Fields, Walmley Residents Association and others, removed the green belt protection status in 2018 and the land was sold off to developers. The 'Birmingham Plan 2031' will see a total of 6000 houses built at Langley and a major industrial park at Peddimore, a very sad time for Walmley.
At the beginning of the 19th century this area, part of Sutton Coldfield, was a scattered rural community with hamlets at Walmley Ash and at Langley Heath. On Fox Hollies Road near Webster Way a charity School was opened by Sutton Corporation in 1826 for sixty children with a teacher's house attached. The school doubled as the parish church until St John's was built twenty years later. In 1851 a new school was built adjacent to the church, the precursor of the present Deanery School.
The church of St John the Evangelist stands on Walmley Road at the centre of the district. An unusual church building, it was designed by D.R. Hill in a Norman style and constructed in blue engineering brick. It has stone dressings and a patterned tiled roof. There is a prominent rose window at the west end and the church has a small bellcote. Inside is a hammerbeam roof. The large extension which was opened in 1987 by Bishop of Aston then became the church, while the original building was turned into a church centre for community activities.
At the junction of Walmley Road and Fox Hollies Road stands the Walmley Almshouse, a
Grade II listed building which was erected in 1828. This original building is now the administrative office for the Sutton Municipal Charities, who run the present almshouses. Financed by a bequest of Frances Lingard, there are ten single story residences in red brick, with blue brick decoration, with stone dressings and decorative bargeboards. Five more almshouses were built in 1863, the porches bear the inscriptions of J Riland and Ann Webb. Additional accommodation was opened in 1971 by Princess Anne and named Lingard House. It follows the traditional layour of almshouses set around a central garden area.
Tucked away behind the houses off Walmely Road is Warren House Farm, which is one of Bishop Vesey's cottages, one of fifty one built by the Bishop for the public good. Although considerably altered since the 16th century it has a Grade II listing. Attached to the farmhouse is a granary, which may be older than Vesey House, and which has had to be supported at some time in the past with buttresses.
Away from the centre of Walmley village, on Wylde Green Road, is another of the few remaining Vesey houses, this house surviving in more of its original design. Built in local red sand stone this Grade II listed cottage was the home of the ford keeper. The small canalised stream here is Plantsbrook, also known as East Brook or Ebrook. In earlier times it clearly presented problems for travellers crossing the wide, marshy valley from Walmley to Sutton, not the least of which may have been the requirement to pay a toll to cross.
Medieval Survivals
Nearby is anothe Grade II listed house, Wincelle. The 15th century frame and other reusable materials were brought here from Wiggins Hill in 1910 by Walter Wilkinson of New Hall. The name Wincelle derives from the recorded name for Wiggins Hill in the Domesday Book. A house called Elmhurst now stands on the site at Wiggins Hill.
Another medieval survival is the barn at New Shipton Farm, which is Grade II listed and a rare Birmingham cruck-framed building. There are five pairs of oak crucks which dendrochronologically date the construction to the spring or summer of 1425. The farmhouse itself dates from the 17th century and presumably replaced Old Shipton Farm. A prestigious housing development around the farm, began in 2005, as part of which the barn was converted into offices, and the farmhouse and outbuildings into a variety of dwellings.
The name Shipton probably derives from sceaptun, 'sheep farm' in Anglo-Saxon, or it may have a medieval date. The keeping of sheep was part of a mixed agricultural economy in this woodland pasture area of the Midlands which included keeping cattle as well as the growing of vegetables and cereals.
A vestige of even earlier times is Jones Wood, which stands off Fox Hollies Road. It is designated as ancient woodland, 'ancient' being defined as having been under continuous cover since at least the year 1600. Prior to this it was unusual for landowners to plant woods, so woodland known before that date is fairly certain to have developed naturally at some early time in the past.