About This Website - Sutton Beauty & Heritage
Historically, Sutton has been a Lancastrian centre of mining and industry. However as traditional ways of earning a living have ended, so the landscape of the area has changed with areas of natural beauty now flourishing. Sutton is going through a period of regeneration and this website is a long-term project intended to document both its renewal and its history.
The website is owned, written and researched by
myself, Stephen Wainwright. I only moved to Sutton in
1985 and in the late 1990s, I began walking the dogs
of St.Helens' arts and heritage champion
Chris
Coffey,
while he attended various Laurel & Hardy and
film events. This took me to places that I knew
little about, such as Sutton Mill Dam and the
Clock Face Colliery Country Park.
The idea for Sutton Beauty came when Chris and
I were at the Mill Dam one day in May 2006 and it was
launched in November of that year. The focus was
purely on the present day in Sutton with just a
little background information on the historical
development of each featured site. However, the
majority of emails that I began receiving,
demonstrated considerable interest in the history of
Sutton, Clock Face and Bold. So in July 2008, the
website was relaunched as Sutton Beauty &
Heritage with a stronger emphasis on the history
of the Sutton district, as well as retaining the
original ethos of celebrating the present.
In almost five years, Sutton Beauty &
Heritage has gone from strength to strength with
over fifty dedicated heritage pages plus
photo-albums. A small army of contributors from all
over the world have contributed many photographs and
much information. I am especially proud of the
Memories
of Sutton
section, which as of April 2011, has thirteen pages
with part 14 in production. So far twenty-five
individuals have contributed their recollections of
Sutton. If you'd like to submit your own memories, I
would be delighted to hear from you.
The references to Sutton in St.Helens, incidentally,
within this website include
Sutton Heath, Sutton Manor, Sutton Oak and Sutton
Leach, Marshalls Cross, Lea Green, Peasley Cross,
Four Acre, Clock Face and Bold Heath. Essentially
greater Sutton within south St.Helens.
Sutton Beauty & Heritage
is an evolving resource which is very regularly
updated with new images and information and is
permanently under construction. No page is ever
completed - it's simply waiting for an update!
Do visit my two other websites relating to St.Helens
heritage:
George
Groves - the Movie Sound Pioneer
- Oscar-winning George was born in Duke Street in
1901 and raised in Owen Street, King Edward Road and
Speakman Road. Plus
Herbert
Mundin - the Hollywood Scene Stealer
- the 1920s and '30s stage and film actor was born in
Windleshaw Road in 1898 and had uncles in Waterdale
Crescent, Sutton and Kiln Lane and an Aunt in
Rainhill.
