View of Perry Hall, near Birmingham (between 1720 & 1730) by Thomas BardwellPart of the moat (also crossed by the bridge in the middle distance), seen in May 2005
The park was formerly the site of Perry Hall, demolished 1927, home of the Gough family, though only the hall's moat remains after the Birmingham Corporation had to choose between saving Perry Hall and the nearby Aston Hall for financial purposes. When Harry Dorsey Gough set up home in Maryland, United States, in 1774, he named his estate there Perry Hall.
Hydrology
The park is bisected by the River Tame, flowing generally north-west to south-east.
In the 1980s, work was completed to lower the parkland south-west of the river, and to create flood alleviation measures. At times of flood, excess water from the river flows over a bund and onto the sports pitches, where it is held until it can be safely and slowly released. By Summer (northern hemisphere) 2014, this had occurred on four occasions. The area is designated as a reservoir, Perry Hall Playing Fields Flood Detention Reservoir[a], which has a capacity of 184,000 cubic metres (40,000,000 imp gal).[3][4]
The river was remodelled in 2005 to slow the flow, alleviate flooding and create improved habitats for wildlife, as part of the SMURF (Sustainable Management of Urban Rivers and Floodplains) project.
^'The City of Birmingham', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7, the City of Birmingham, ed. W B Stephens (London, 1964), pp. 1-3. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol7/pp1-3 [accessed 3 February 2017].
Stunt, Gerald; Allen, Peter (2015). Perry Hall Yesterdays: Characters from a vanished past. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN978-1-5196-6878-3.
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