Moor Hall Hotel

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The Moor Hall Hotel is a hotel in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, UK.

[edit] History

In 1527, Bishop John Vesey bought 40 acres of land for £1500 in Sutton Coldfield called Moor Crofts and Heath Yards close to the farm in which he had been born and raised. Built in brick, it was a substantial mansion for his own occupation. When he was not in London on Court duties or in Exeter on church duties, he lived at Moor Hall. It is said he employed 140 scarlet liveried servants.

In 1551 he retired on a pension of £485 a yea at the age of about 88 but lived only a further four years. When Vesey died in 1555, Moor Hall fell into the possession his nephew, John Harman.

The 1671 Valuation of Sutton Coldfield shows the property in the possession of John Addyes with a value of £61 a year. The Addyes family remained in occupation until 1762. At this time the property was said to comprise twenty rooms on three floors but was described in 1762 by an 'Impartial Hand' as 'a very poor pile of building, without prospect or indeed any any one beauty to recommend it to a man of taste' - 'the timber is said to be as valuable as the land'

After the mid-1800s, the house saw a series of tenants and in 1903 Colonel Edward Ansell of Ansells Brewery bought the house. He demolished it and in 1905 constructed an entirely new modern mansion for his own occupation on the site. The Ansells lived in the new house until 1930 when the whole estate was put up for sale.

It was sold for £35,000 to a local builder Robert Streather who converted the 1905 mansion into a hotel, created a golf course on the park and in exchange was granted permission to develop the remaining land with upmarket residential properties. The 1905 house is still discernible as part of the much altered and extended hotel.