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LMS Route: Birmingham New Street to Lichfield

Sutton Coldfield Station: lnwrsc2610

Painting showing the original Royal Hotel which was opened in May 1865 some three years after the railway

Painting showing the original Royal Hotel which was opened in May 1865 some three years after the railway. Harry Jack writes, 'The painting of the Royal Hotel at Sutton Coldfield has interested me for a long time. It seems there are two versions, and I have seen another version reproduced with a much cruder locomotive in the foreground. Sutton Library told me the painting was in the Cattell Collection, and had been passed to the Museum of Science & Industry in Birmingham. Four years later I went there and they showed me a different version of the painting, the one on your website (the one above). They didn't know anything about the other version - which, apart from the black & white reproduction, I've never seen. Both look to me like the architect's work, showing how his new Royal Hotel would look when built, with foreground detail included to show how near it would be to the station.'

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