Ian Sinclair
20 Mar 2017
Sutton Lodge is an important Victorian house and the only one in Blossomfield Road remaining in private ownership which retains its original grounds. It was built in 1859 on 1.5 acres of land leased from Henry Harvey Chattock by Joseph Ludlow.
Joseph Ludlow (1817-1890) was a land surveyor and auctioneer with his own business in Birmingham, who became a major figure in the development of railways in the Midlands and the North. He was involved in obtaining a Parliamentary Bill in 1858/9 to create the line between Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield, and then acquiring the necessary land (for £20,000). It opened on 2 June 1862 and became one of the most profitable lines per mile of track in England. Joseph sold his shares at the top of the market. The opening of the Birmingham – Oxford Railway in 1852 with a station at Solihull led to the area becoming very desirable for wealthy families. Joseph named his house after ‘his’ railway, and moved into it with his wife Maria (born at Leamington in 1828), and sons Walter (born 1857) and Henry (born 1859) both at Erdington. By the time of the 1871 Census the household also had a governess, cook, housemaid and lady’s maid.
The house was designed by John J.Bateman, architect of Cherry Street, Birmingham, and built by William Matthews. The cost estimates ranged from £1,620 to £1,925, and a completion date of 1 May 1860 was specified. The original building plans and elevations survive (in Birmingham Library). There was a basement and cellars, ground floor with outhouses (stables/coach house), and a first floor. Over the years there have been many additions and alterations to the house, and the stables have bee demolished.
Joseph Ludlow was a keen member of the North Warwickshire Hounds for 50 years, and the Boxing Day Meet in 1878 was held at Sutton Lodge. In 1880 he and his wife paid for a stained glass window (by C.E.Kempe) in St Alphege Church in memory of three of their children who had predeceased them (George 1849-67, William, and Florence 1859-75). Walter became a Brigadier General and in 1915 built a house in Widney Manor Road; he died in 1941.
Henry H.Wright acquired Sutton Lodge in 1890. The 1891 Census listed him as a managing director aged 34, his wife Alice Laura aged 21 and a daughter Alice Noel (3). He was granted approval in 1899 for large scale alterations, including a billiard room on the first floor (which still exists with its billiard table). He died in July 1900, but Mrs Wright and her daughter, with three servants, were shown in the 1911 Census as still living there. Alice Noel was a prominent member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. In November 1914 Mrs Wright sold the freehold of Sutton Lodge to Alfred Bird, MP, who lived next door at Tudor Grange. The latter had a major three storey extension built at the Lodge.
Robert V.Howson, an iron manufacturer aged 40, moved into the house in 1915 with is wife Eva and daughter Mary (aged 1). They remained tenants of the Birds until March 1946, when the Bird Trustees sold all their land (186 acres) to Warwickshire County Council. The Howsons surrendered their lease in 1952, moved to Homer Road and died within a few years.
Sutton Lodge was used as the Solihull Institute of Further Education from 1954. For the first five years it was the original Technical College and group photographs of students survive from this period. Thereafter its focus was on art with sculpture, art and textile classes, an Art Library and a Pottery Workshop. Sutton Lodge and the adjacent educational premises were formally transferred to Solihull Council when it became a County Borough in 1964.
In 1982 Rajowski & Co Ltd bought Sutton Lodge and obtained planning permission for a change of use to ‘luxury apartments and adjacent new mews houses and bungalows’. In the event six apartments were created in the further extended house (by architects Humphreys & Goodchild of Edgbaston), and five new dwellings constructed.