1930s Information Required
September 1997: David Withington from Kingswinford is researching his family's history in the period 1930 - 1935. He would like to know more about Hannah Humphries, who died in a nursing home in Suckley in the late 1930s. In particular, he's trying to answer the following questions:

• What is the name of the Bailiff who looked after Suckley's hop-pickers and lived in a converted railway coach near Sindons Mill Farm (and near to a cottage lived in by the Kennards)? David thinks his name might be Blackwood or Blackmoor. The railway coach was burnt out in the 1940s.
• Where is The Coppice in Suckley?
• Where is Mill Lane in Suckley?
• Where exactly was the off-licence run by sisters called Rawls and Mrs. Iddles in Longley Green? Does anyone know any history associated with this off-license?

If you have any information for David, please phone him on 44 (0) 1384 831215 or leave a message in the website guestbook (see below).

Suckley's new Football Pitch
July 1997: Malvern Hills District Council are providing 75,000 pounds for Suckley's new all-weather football pitch, which is being built on Suckley playing fields, and is due to be finished in September this year. An additional 25000 pounds has been raised within the village.

Found in the Vestry Desk
June 1997. John Hammonds writes in The Sphere: Not the Mappa Mundi, or even the Map 'o Suckley but an Elizabethan thesis on religious doctrine translated from the original latin of Wolfgang Musculus. I have taken it to the County Archivist and consulted the Cathedral librarian and the story so far is ... Wolfgang Musculus was a Swiss theologian whose works were published in Basle between 1560 and 1580. It appears that some of his works are in the Cathedral library. The book we found has a wooden front cover and still retains its original bindings. It was printed in London in 1585 by Henry Binneman (who was well known in those times) and was dedicated to Sir Christopher Hatton, who was chamberlain to Elizabeth 1. If anyone has any knowledge of the book or its history please contact me or Susannah McFarlane.

A village that's on line to the future
November 1996:The Birmingham Post published a back-page feature all about Suckley, as part of its Down Your Way series. You can read this newspaper article here on the Suckley web site.

... and new on Suckley's web site ...
October 1997: The Suckley web site now has a village guestbook which you're invited to sign.

October 1997: The Suckley web site was the very first village to join Irish and British Villages, which is becoming very successful.

July 1997: A new page all about Music in Suckley, featuring Arthur Bancroft playing the musical saw, and the sounds of the bells and the organ of Suckley Church.

The Suckley Hills, as seen from Birchwood Lane in the 1970s