A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames . . . from A to Y

William Dargue - A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames . . .  from A to Y

 

Hunton Hill

B23 - Grid reference SP101907

Use the grid reference on the Ordnance Survey website - Get-a-map.

The Sutton line cuts through the ridge that is Hunton Hill. The photograph is taken from the road known as Hunton Hill Looking towards the City Centre.The Sutton line cuts through the ridge that is Hunton Hill. The photograph is taken from the road known as Hunton Hill Looking towards the City Centre.

 

Off Gravelly Hill, this is a name of uncertain origin, meaning and date. The final element may be from Old English, ton, meaning 'farm, settlement, village' or from dun, 'hill'. The 1834 Ordnance Survey map shows Hunton Hill marked south of the road now known as Hunton Hill; the 1889 map shows the road as Station Road. Although the name may be an import  (There are over a dozen such placenames in the country from the Orkneys to Kent), this seems unlikely as the area was almost entirely agricultural before the building of the railway and the opening of Gravelly Hill station on the Sutton Coldfield Branch Line in 1862. 

 

William Dargue 28.03.09

 

  

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For 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of Birmingham go to British History Online - Maps.