Grundy?

"In 1859, William Morris Grundy, a wealthy local landowner, died leaving behind an estate worth £25,000. His home, at what is now the Royal Hotel on the High Street, looked over a hill and a sandstone barn constructed by Bishop Vesey. This belonged to Grundy until his death. The land was sold off in plots to developers who built homes along there. Some of the land was sold to the Midland Railway Company for £4,000 when it was discovered that it was to be part of their proposed new line. In 1862, Sutton Coldfield received a railway station; Sutton Coldfield railway station. The Sutton Park Line was then opened in the 1870s."

Does this suggest that our site was part of Grundy's land? Or just the land for the main railway station?

Now look at this:

http://www.thisissuttoncoldfield.co.uk/historyspot/Grundy-s-work-won-great-praise/article-505658-detail/article.html

And then we have this:

"William Morris Grundy (born 1806) is probably the most important early photographer to emerge from the shadows in the past few years. His father, Morris Grundy, was a partner in the Birmingham firm of Horton and Grundy, curriers and patent leather manufacturers, and in 1852 W.M. Grundy inherited a share in this highly profitable business, giving him time and resources to pursue his interest in photography. He is exceptionally early, having died in 1859. His views depict a rural idyll in England that was fast disappearing, especially around Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham w he lived. Very little is known about his life except that he died leaving £20,000 (a fortune in those days) to his sisters as he was unmarried, and that he lived at what is now the Royal Hotel in Sutton Coldfield and either rented or owned a farm in the vicinity. The barns that feature so prominently in his views are thought to be on the Bishop Vesey estates around what is now Old Moor Hall or Sutton Coldfield Park. Some views indicate that these were originally ecclesiastical buildings of some kind and I hope to go to the area for a few days next year to pursue further lines of research."

Attached:

• self-portrait photograph by William Morris Grundy (1806-1859) wearing North African robes and smoking a hookah. BONKERS!


• stereoscopic photograph by W. M. Grundy looking across Mill Street to the first Town School, c1855 Photograph courtesy of the Norman Evans Collection.