Streetly dates back to Saxon times and derived its name from Ryknield Street, which was a Roman road which ran from the present site of the Parson & Clerk Hotel on through Sutton park towards the rail line. The  Anglo-Saxon Charter dated 959 recorded that an estate at Great Barr and Easton (Little Aston) was granted to Thegn Wulfhelm. The earl of Warwick owned Streetly in Medieval times when he resided at the Monor House, Manor Hill in Sutton Coldfield, an area covered in Forest.

By the 13th century charcoal burners had cleared much of the original forest, hence the name 'The Colefield'. The land was left as heath and marshland which was described in the late 18th century as "a barren sheep walk containing in some large tracts scarcely any other plants than heath, in other places fern, gorse, whortleberries and rushes with grass in small proportion". Much of the area which then formed part of Great Barr Common was enclosed in 1795 at the behest of local landowners including Sir Joseph Scott of the Nether Hall, Great Barr, and Mrs. E Foley of Great Barr Hall. The land so enclosed was divided and let as 9 farms.

In 1879 the Midland Railway Company opened a station at the corner of Foley Road and Thornhill Road and gave it the name of Streetly Station. Development of the district started in Streetly Lane and Foley Road and the adjacent land, all within easy reach of the railway station which formed the main access to the area for most people until well into the 20th century. The station was closed in 1965. Until 1914 housing development was limited to the area between Thornhill Road and the Chester Road. A church was built in Foley Road in 1908 to serve as a chapel of ease to Great Barr Parish Church and a school was opened in Foley Road in 1908.

Between 1918, when Mr. Arthur Turner's estate at Streetly was sold and divided amongst the original 9 farms, and 1939, housing development continued in the same area. Blackwood Road was cut through farm land in the 1920's. However much of the area remained relatively rural in character until after 1945.

The present amenities such as the Methodist Chapel in Blackwood Road, St. Anne's Roman Catholic Church, the Clinic and the Library in Blackwood Road date from the period 1960-1970 as does much of the housing stock which is privately owned.

Streetly remains a very open area which historically was agricultural, but has developed into an established suburb during the 1950's and 1970's to be part of  the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, England. It is adjacent to Aldridge, (see www.Aldridge-web.com)  and near to  Little Aston and Four Oaks.

Administratively, Streetly was in Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District until 1974, when that district was subsumed into Walsall. 

Positioned from the rest of the Borough of Walsall by 240 acres of park land on Barr Beacon, and therefore has stronger ties with Sutton Coldfield, reflected by Streetly falling within Sutton Coldfield Post Town. The telephone area code of Streetly is also associated with the Birmingham '0121' number as apposed to the '01922' number shared by Aldridge and  Walsall, making the percieved association with Sutton Coldfield widely accepted.

Driving time of about  20 minutes  from Birmingham city centre, 15 minutes from Walsall and 15 minutes from Sutton Coldfield town centre.

Reproduced courtesy
of The Francis
Frith Collection.

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