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Quinton
is situated just off Junction 3 on the M5 and
is only five miles West of Central Birmingham
and is just some 2 miles East of Halesowen. Until
1842 this rural community used to be a parish
of Halesowen. That all changed and it became a
parish in this year. Quinton from the old English
word of Cweningtun (farm of Cwena) translates
to the place of woman or the Queens manor. Kings
and Queens of England were obviously two a penny
in those days.
Ridgeacre
which Quinton often used to be called, means ploughed
land on a ridge. Quinton was an agricultural village
and part of Worcestershire. At the turn of the
century the population was circa 5000. Quinton
then voted to become part of Birmingham in 1909.
You can imagine the attractions of being aligned
to an up and coming new city as apposed to being
a rural community out in the sticks. In those
days farming was tough and people would still
have remembered the hardships in farming from
the 1860's. The attraction of work in the city
and accompanying increase in salary would have
been appealing.
Expansion
followed and the population increased along with
the abundance of new housing that rapidly took
away the green fields and rural status of Quinton
village. Thankfully some considerate soul left
the big green bit in the middle which is now the
Woodgate Valley Park.
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