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In 1590 Richard Smallbroke the younger built Blakesley Hall on the edge of the small countryside village of Yardley to show off his status as a wealthy merchant in the upper reaches of the Tudor middle class. This new house was cutting-edge for its time, boasting glazed windows, fire places with brick chimneys, a long gallery and decorative wall paintings – all of which were normally associated with much bigger and grander houses like Aston Hall.
After Richard’s death in 1609 the house was eventually inherited by his granddaughter Barbara who was married to Henry Devereux of Castle Bromwich Hall. After Henry died Barbara remarried, to Aylmer Foliot from Pershore. The Foliot name lives on in ‘Foliot Fields’ a road just a few streets away. In 1684 Blakesley Hall was sold to the Greswolde family from Knowle who already owned land in Yardley and Greet. For the next 200 years, Blakesley Hall was rented to tenant farmers who farmed the fields surrounding Yardley. By 1899 the property had become neglected and dilapidated, but it was bought by Henry Donne who renovated it and sold it to Thomas Merry, a paint and varnish manufacturer who lived there with his family until 1932.
Mr King then purchased Blakesley Hall in 1932 for £3,500 (about £204,000 at today’s prices according to the Bank of England inflation calculator), but very quickly sold it again to The Common Good Trust for £3,000). He appears to have sold some of the land separately to a builder from Yardley for £1,700. At this point, local people feared that the Hall would be demolished and its land developed for new housing estates like those all around. Although a public appeal to buy the Hall and estate failed it was eventually sold to the Birmingham Common Ground Trust on behalf of Birmingham Council, and on 26 October 1935, Blakesley Hall opened as a museum.
In England, land used to be measured by the acre, rood and perch. An acre is roughly the size of one half of a football pitch. There are four roods in an acre, and 40 perches in one rood. The gardens and grounds of Blakesley Hall measured 5 acres, 3 roods and 9 perches – almost 3 football pitches in size
Platinotype print of Blakesley Hall in 1868, taken by John Benjamin Stone.