The River Rea, which flows through the area and once powered mills at Lifford, Hazelwell, Dogpool and Moor Green, is now a walking and cycle route.

Until the Local Provisional Order Bill came into effect on 9 November 1911,[3] the area was administered by the King’s Norton and Northfield Urban District Council in the East Worcestershire (UK Parliament constituency) represented by Austen Chamberlain.

The earliest known reference of a settlement at Stirchley is a deed dated 6 May 1658, where it is described as an "Indenture between Katherine Compton and Daniel Greves and others concerning a tenement and lands at Stretley Streete in the Parish of King’s Norton".

[15] The Tithe Map records a feature of Near and Far Motts, now beneath the housing development at Foxes Meadow[16] suggesting the possibility of an ancient Celtic settlement, hill-fort, or look-out site at the top of the ridge which runs through Northfield to Dudley.

[18] Hutton commented that "In the parish of King’s Norton, four miles [6 kilometres] south west of Birmingham is ‘The Moats’, upon which long resided the ancient family of Field.

Gelling suggests that major place-names like Strete or Streetly refer to the position of the settlement on or close to one of the main roads of Roman Britain.

[27] The 1838 Tithe Map for King’s Norton Parish in the County of Worcestershire identifies the place, rather than the road name, as Stirchley Street.

[29] The boundaries of King’s Norton parish and the manor were coterminous and stretched from Balsall Heath in the north to Wythall in the south, from Rednal in the west to Solihull Lodge in the east.

[31] Some these manors are now part of the Anglo-Saxon presence in Greater Birmingham: Moseley, King’s Norton, Lindsworth, Tessall, Rednal, Wychall, and possibly Lea.

Monkhouse considered the reference to belong to the Stirchley area of Leys Farm while F and C Thorn identified it as Lea Green near Houndsfield and Wythwood.

[37] To establish the Saxon presence in the territory of modern Birmingham all the former Manors and Berewicks/Outliers mentioned in Domesday Book that are now within the boundaries of the city, need to be combined.

[38] This is complicated by the fact that separate figures were not given for Harborne (Staffordshire), Yardley and King’s Norton (Worcestershire) which were all attached to manors outside the area.

[41] The nun-cupative (oral) will is a unique inclusion and suggests that the Bishop had a particular reason for not wishing to lose the territory of Selly Oak which meets Stirchley north of the Bourn and west of the River Rea.

The ‘wick’ may be a loan from the Latin vicus, a civilian settlement associated with a Roman fort or it may belong to a variety of meanings including salt-working centre or a dairy farm.

King’s Norton village was connected to Birmingham by a minor rural track until it reached the road from Alcester to Balsall Heath which was turnpiked in 1767.

[54] This new road from Birmingham to Redditch began near Smithfield Market and headed south through Edgbaston Parish (Warwickshire) to Pebble Mill where the Bourn Brook marks the former county boundary.

Buses were impressed for military use, staff shortages became acute giving rise to the appearance of conductresses, costs rose and supplies of all kinds became difficult to obtain.

An early wooden accommodation draw-bridge at Leay House Farm, located where Mary Vale Road now crosses the canal, was replaced by a brick bridge in 1810.

The lighter Engines required for the Dowery Dell viaduct operated from Lifford taking empty wagons on the outward journey and returning with loads, usually steel tubes and coil, manufactured in the Halesowen area.

[77] Joseph Chamberlain (senior) gave financial support to his brother-in-law, John Sutton Nettlefold, to secure at a cost of £30,000, the English rights to an American screw making machine.

The property included an attractive Elizabethan red brick farmhouse, called Ivy House or Nine Elms into which Charles Showell moved.

Hazelwell Park was the former venue for the festival but major works to address issues of flooding meant it was temporarily unavailable and the new location fits in well with the regeneration of Stirchley.

Ten Acres Park is between Cartland Road and Dogpool Lane where the former head race for the mill was cut from the Bourn and the River Rea.

[98] Stirchley Pavilion, Pershore Road, was designed by Harold Seymore Scott and opened on 18 November 1931 by Alderman Sir Percival Bower.

The earliest pubs were the Cross Inn, that was relocated to build the GKN works and the Black Horse where Stirchley Baths was built.

Formerly the Pershore Road Inn and then the Selly Park Hotel, it was built on land owned by the brewer Sir John Holder whose initials appear on the centre gable.

[109] On 25 June 1911, Stirchley Baths in Bournville Lane were opened to the public by King's Norton and Northfield Urban District Council.

The meeting owed its foundation to the removal in 1879 of Cadbury’s cocoa and chocolate works from Bridge Street, Birmingham, to their new site at Bournville, and the consequent migration of management and staff, some of whom were Quakers.

Kingdom Hall for Jehovah's Witnesses Stirchley Community Church The Salvation Army used the top floor of Jesse Hill’s premises in Ash Tree Road for children’s services.

However, an annex was opened at Hazelwell Parish Hall in 1930 to accommodate growing pupil numbers, before the main site was finally expanded to create a 14-class (two-form entry) 5-11 school in 1952.