Quinton, is a residential area and ward of Birmingham, England just under west of the city centre. Formerly part of Halesowen parish, Quinton became part of Birmingham in 1909. Quinton was a village and the surrounding area was farmland until the 1930s when the first housing estates were developed. Most of the farmland had been built on by 1980 but some countryside remains in the form of Woodgate Valley Country Park. Along with Bartley Green, Harborne and Edgbaston, Quinton is a part of the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency. History The name of Quinton is thought to derive from Cweningtun, meaning the queen's settlement. Quinton was formerly part of the ancient parish of Halesowen and was largely owned in medieval times by the wealthy abbey at Lapal near Halesowen. In the 1840s, when called The Quinton, mention was made of two small coal mines in the area and that the inhabitants were employed in nail manufacturing. The parish was generally known as Ridgacre until 1901, and formed, with most of Halesowen parish, a detached part of Shropshire, until moving to Worcestershire in 1844. Quinton developed along the turnpiked Kidderminster and Birmingham road. Data from the 1881 census shows working in agriculture and the building trades to be the top two male occupations whereas for working women it was domestic service and nail making. Prior to the construction of the M5 motorway, Quinton's north western boundary extended over to the west. Where is now the Chantry Drive housing development there formerly stood the Primitive Methodist, Bourne College in its of grounds. The college, a boarding school for boys, was built in 1882 and named after one of the joint founders of Primitive Methodism, Hugh Bourne. Hoosen Close is named after the college's only headmaster. The college closed in 1928 and the buildings were used from 1931 as a residential home for elderly men, known as Quinton Hall. The hall was demolished in 1978. Quinton with its population of 1,100 and area of was incorporated into the county borough of Birmingham, in Warwickshire, on 9 November 1909. A tree was planted by Birmingham's Lord Mayor in Quinton Recreation Ground to commemorate the centenary. Quinton remained in character a village rather than a suburb until large-scale private housing development of the 1930s. Factory developments were not planned for the area because of objections by residents of Edgbaston to the possibility of fumes being blown over