Where to Stay in Solihull, England

What is Solihull known for?

Events there fill rooms across the whole borough, and a good many visitors never reach the older town at all, though it stands only a few minutes from the shops. St Alphege's Church is the marker. Around it the Forest of Arden country holds halls and moated ground, from Grimshaw Hall at Knowle to Hillfield Hall and Tudor Grange House.

What are the main landmarks in Solihull?

St Alphege's Church heads the list. The borough's other parish churches, Knowle Parish Church, St James the Great at Shirley, St Nicholas' Church at Elmdon, spread the same record out across the villages that the town later gathered. Halls do the rest.

Grimshaw Hall, Hillfield Hall, Malvern Hall, Chester House and Tudor Grange House survive from the Forest of Arden estates, and Páirc na hÉireann adds a name from a much later chapter.

What is the history of Solihull?

Market trade shaped the middle. Solihull grew as a market town in the Forest of Arden, and the names that carry the older record are still on the map: The Guild House, Bradford House, The Olde House and, on the parish side, St Alphege's Church. Farmland framed the parish.

Moated ground at Tilehouse Green and the farm at Bickenhill Castle Hills Farm belong to the worked country the Forest of Arden once meant, before the West Midlands conurbation reached this far out. Halls mark the next stretch. Grimshaw Hall at Knowle, Malvern Hall, Hillfield Hall, Eastcote Hall, Longdon Hall, Ravenshaw Hall and Bogay Hall are the estate houses of a parish the conurbation took in only later, and Chester House and Stowe House carry the same account in smaller form.

Knowle kept its own church. Knowle Parish Church, St James the Great at Shirley and St Nicholas' Church at Elmdon record villages that stood apart before the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull gathered them. The record does not stop at the parish churches: the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Augustine of Canterbury and the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Wayside are named in it too.

Where is Solihull?

The River Blythe is the water here. Solihull sits southeast of Birmingham inside the Forest of Arden country, and the West Midlands conurbation reaches the town from the city side while Knowle and the outer villages keep open land around them. Coventry lies further out.

Elmdon, Shirley and Bickenhill mark the built-up edge, and the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull holds both kinds of ground inside one boundary.

What is the climate of Solihull?

Temperate, and firmly inland. The Forest of Arden country lies away from any coast, so no sea does the moderating here and the year turns on cloud and rain far more than on heat or cold. Grey mornings are the norm.

When one settles in, St Alphege's Church, Malvern Hall and the National Exhibition Centre all keep a visit going under a roof.

How do you get to Solihull?

Most arrivals come through Birmingham. Solihull sits southeast of Birmingham, close enough that the city is the practical arrival point for anyone reaching the borough from outside the West Midlands. The National Exhibition Centre brings its own traffic.

Event crowds move between the exhibition halls and their rooms, which is a different journey from the one ending at St Alphege's Church and the old market streets. Coventry is the next city out, and Knowle, Shirley and Elmdon sit on the local runs in between.