Balsall Common in the context of "Kenilworth"

The Metropolitan Borough of Solihull is a metropolitan borough in West Midlands county, England. It is named after its largest town, Solihull, from which Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is based. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region (code UKG32) and is one of seven boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region. Much of the large residential population in the north of the borough centres on the communities of Castle Bromwich, Kingshurst, Marston Green and Smith's Wood as well as the towns of Chelmsley Wood and Fordbridge. In the south are the towns of Shirley and Solihull, as well as the large villages of Knowle, Dorridge, Meriden and Balsall Common.

Since 2011, Solihull has formed part of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership along with neighbouring authorities Birmingham, Bromsgrove, Cannock Chase, East Staffordshire, Lichfield, Redditch, Tamworth and Wyre Forest.

The Meriden Gap is a mostly rural area in the West Midlands, England, between Solihull and Coventry. It is a part of the wider West Midlands Green Belt, separating Coventry from the large West Midlands conurbation, which includes Birmingham and The Black Country.

The 'Gap' takes its name from the village central to the area, Meriden, although the largest settlement is the small town of Balsall Common. The highest point lies at 185 metres (607 ft) above sea level on the northern edge of Boultbee's Wood north of the hamlet of Eaves Green, close to the West Midlands-Warwickshire border.

Barston is a village and civil parish in Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands of England. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7 km) east of Solihull and is located inside a large meander of the River Blythe, at the western edge of the Meriden Gap, and midway between the far larger villages of Balsall Common and Hampton-in-Arden. The nearest large city is Birmingham, 11 miles (18 km) away to the west. According to the 2001 UK Census, the parish had a population of 499, increasing to 533 at the 2011 Census.

Barston is an affluent village with many historic buildings, some of which are timber-framed. The Church of St. Swithin is a Church of England church which dates from 1721, and is built on the site of an earlier church. The village also possesses two pubs, The Bulls Head Archived 14 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine and The Malt Shovel, and about 50 residential properties. The Barston Memorial Institute, opposite the Bulls Head, hosts many village activities with a Friday night youth club and regular Art Classes as well as the Barston WI and U3A meetings. There is no bus service or any other form of public transport in the village, although an abandoned bus stop still exists at the end of the central road of Barston, Oak Lane, which is left over from an old-school service from the 1970s and 1980s. Next to the bus stop is an old-fashioned red phone box.

Temple Balsall (grid reference SP207760) is a village in the civil parish of Balsall, in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the English West Midlands, situated between the large villages of Knowle (where population details as taken at the 2011 census can be found) and Balsall Common. It was formerly in Warwickshire and is on a notoriously bad series of bends on the B4101 Kenilworth Road.

It is one of the oldest and most interesting sites in the borough. It is named after, and dates from the time of, the Knights Templar. They farmed about 650 acres (2.6 km) of the estate in the 12th century, and established Balsall Preceptory where a number of brothers lived and ran the estate. After the Order was suppressed, the estate was given to the Knights Hospitaller of St John. They lost it when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and Queen Elizabeth I gave the estate to Robert Dudley. The 13th-century church and Old Hall, and 17th-century almshouses survive.