Castle Bromwich (/brɒmɪtʃ/) is a large suburban village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands, England.

[3] It was a civil parish within the Meriden Rural District of Warwickshire until the Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974, when it became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull.

This rose to just over 1,000 in the 1920s, when half of the original parish was ceded to the City of Birmingham for the construction of overspill estates.

Romans, Saxons and Normans have also settled on this raised piece of land close to a natural ford across the River Tame.

[6] Bromwich comes from the old words 'brom' for the yellow flowering broom which grows here and 'wich' an ancient name for a dwelling or settlement.

The motte (called the Pimple Hill locally) is some 40 metres in diameter and appears to be a natural feature[citation needed] that was probably heightened by Iron Age settlers, then by the later Normans and once again during the developed of the 1970s to make way for the A452 "Collector Road", which by-passed Castle Bromwich to the north.

It still remains today, somewhat reduced, sandwiched between the M6 and the Collector Road (Castle Bromwich & Chelmsley Wood bypass).

In the 1780s stagecoaches travelling from Holyhead to London stopped in the village, as did a horse-drawn bus from Birmingham to Coleshill.

Castle Bromwich has had historic ties with both Erdington and Water Orton through administration, governance and land ownership whilst being part of the Parish.

In 1931, a portion of Castle Bromwich land was sold and ceded to the City of Birmingham who built the overspill Chipperfield Road development during 1937–8.

[7] During World War II, the occupants of Chipperfield Road pulled down an ancient white-washed farm house thinking it would deny German bomber crews a marker to the aerodrome and the adjoining factories.

Castle Bromwich Hall is a Jacobean mansion that was built in 1599 by Sir Edward Devereux, the first MP for Tamworth in Staffordshire.

Adjacent to 'The Bridgeman Arms Inn' were several cottages, used for servants, and an estate office for the Earl of Bradford who then owned much of the land in Castle Bromwich.

The first Police Station was also established here under Pc Charlie Whale, before moving to a specialist house and lock up near to the Coach and Horses.

When the Kingshurst estate was built policing was from a two-man unit there, this closed down when the new Chelmsley Wood station opened.

Part of the Inn was destroyed by a bomb in World War II, when two platoons of the Home Guard were based there.

One of the ancient Ridgeways of England, it ran from the castle to Grimstock Hill Romano-British settlement at Coleshill.

The following houses have all disappeared; some are remembered on road signs: and farms such as: A large piece of Warwickshire grassland (Castle Bromwich Playing Fields) became the Castle Bromwich private aerodrome, when Alfred P. Maxwell flew the first aeroplane in the Birmingham area in September 1909.

The British Industries Fair (the pre runner to the National Exhibition Centre) was a large complex of buildings built on land adjacent to the aerodrome and Castle Bromwich railway station in 1920.

In these early days it was the busiest airport in the area due to its combined passenger, post and railway air business.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s the aerodrome was also a checking-in point for the infamous 'Contact Races' held in the Midlands, which were organised by and between various civil flying clubs in the area.

In 1934, the Air Ministry stated that Castle Bromwich could not be used for civil purposes indefinitely, so a new airport was constructed at Elmdon (some five miles (8 km) away), just outside the Birmingham City boundary.

This huge 'shadow factory' was part of a larger plan to disperse production and move vital resources that lay within easy range of German bombers (Vickers Supermarine's original factory at Southampton was devastated by enemy bombers just as Castle Bromwich came into production in 1940.).

Very large hangar-like buildings were erected on the east side of the airfield which were referred to as 'Erecting Sheds', where aircraft were prepared for flight testing.

After failing to get initial production underway, the mercurial Air Minister, Lord Beaverbrook, ordered the Nuffield Organization to relinquish control of the CBAF to Vickers.

This company was the sub-contractor for most of the now defunct BMC and British Leyland marques, the last being Jaguar, who took over outright control of the factory in 1977.

The runway was broken up, many of the buildings were demolished and in 1963 construction work began on a new Birmingham overspill estate – Castle Vale – which was completed in 1969.

Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the CBAF were held on 15 July 1998, which included a fly-by flown by Ray Hanna in his ex-CBAF Spitfire MkIX, MH434.

Alex Henshaw also unveiled a memorial plaque just inside the old factory's main gate onto the Kingsbury Road.

[12] A BBC report indicated that the plant "also produces the Jaguar XF, XE and F-Type", but the XJ was critical to the success of the facility.