Local History

We can help if you’re interested in finding out more about local history.

We collect everything we can about places within the Solihull borough, including:

• maps
• photographs
• building plans
• trade directories
• sale catalogues
• newspapers
• census returns
• electoral registers
• books on local history and the local area

Contact us if you're looking for something in particular - we have lots of information that isn't available via Google!

Brief histories of individual places in Solihull are available on our local areas pages.

Remember that history is not something that is past and finished - it is ongoing and we are all contributing to the future history of our communities. We need your help to make sure that material is preserved for future generations - contact us if you have any local photos or documents that you think would be useful for our collections.

Did you go to school in Solihull? Have you worked in the borough? Do you remember what life was like here during the war? Do you remember moving to the area? What were your first impressions of life in Solihull? We are actively collecting your memories so that future generations will have a true picture of the real community history of the Solihull borough. Please take a few moments to fill in a memory sheet (in attachments section on the right).

Heritage Gallery

Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service has regular exhibitions in the Heritage Gallery on the 1st floor of Solihull Central Library. Previous exhibitions have included: Lost and Listed Buildings of Solihull; Royal Visits; Tracing Your Family History and an exhibition of unidentified photos. Why not come along and see what's on now? Visit the Heritage Gallery page.

Maps

If you are researching the history of an area or of a specific building, then maps are an excellent place to start as they set the place in its context. You can see what the area was like, what local industries were there or what large houses were nearby. Maps also show buildings such as schools, churches and public houses and, when combined with trade directories and census returns, give you a real flavour of a town or village.

Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service has copies of most of the Ordnance Survey maps covering places within the Borough from the 1880s to the present day. Note that maps were produced at approximately 20-year intervals, although few were revised during the 1930s as the outbreak of the Second World War interrupted surveying work.

Also available for most parishes now with the Solihull Borough are tithe maps, which were usually published in the 1840s. Accompanying the tithe map is a tithe apportionment which indicates the name of the owner of each plot of land, the name of the occupier, the size of the land and a description of its use.

Newspapers

Historic newspapers are invaluable in researching local and family history. We hold copies of the Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser, Warwick County News (later Solihull News) and Solihull Times. A searchable database listing newspaper titles for the whole of the West Midlands region is available at http://www.newsplan.co.uk/wm_newsplan/modules.php

Photographs

Are you interested in seeing how a place has changed over time?  We have over 10,000 photos of the local area - come along to Solihull Heritage & Local Studies Service and see if we have the picture you're looking for.

We're always keen to add new photos to the collection - let us know if you can help.  E-mail heritage@solihull.gov.uk or telephone 0121 704 6934.