Geology and natural
vegetation (Maps One and Three)
The geology of Church End is simple. Keuper Marl, the red clay of the
Midlands, covers the whole area. It is many hundreds of feet thick and
impenetrable by water. Overlying the clay in places are patches of drift,
two of sand and gravel north-west of the village, and two very small ones
north-east of it. Boulder clay and mixed drift lie about the Coventry Road
and extend south through Yardley, and north of Lea Hall. There is or was a
narrow outcrop of soft Arden Sandstone curving about the site of Glebe Farm.
The drift is a legacy of the most recent Ice Age, a remnant of masses of
transported material deposited in glacial lakes and terminal moraines,
broken by ice, smoothed and partially washed away by melt-water torrents as
the glaciers dwindled. Immense rivers coursed down former drainage channels,
gouging out deep trenches. The larger of these became infilled with silt,
becoming wide, flat-floored valleys across which small post-glacial streams
meandered and flooded.
Drift survives as a thin capping on interfluvial ridges: the solid
material, fragmented rock, is resistant to wear unlike the soft clay. The
porosity of drift makes it a storehouse of water, which cannot penetrate the
impervious clay beneath and so spreads out across it, appearing as springs
at the interface. Sandy material is washed down from the highest levels,
leaving stony ridges. These are dry and un-welcoming to heavy afforestation,
so that they are relatively clear of trees and firm underfoot. Valley sides,
bare of drift, were in natural conditions very thickly wooded. Clay is
fertile and its rich topsoil retains water enough for the thirsty oaks. That
tree tolerates bush and bramble undergrowth. A natural oak forest, like that
which once lay between the village and the Coventry Road was a largely
impenetrable deciduous jungle. This petered out beside boggy side-streams
and at the edges of the Cole flood-plain: there willow and alder and
tussocky grasses covered waterlogged silt.
Natural vegetation can be deduced from the known characteristics of the
surface rocks, but old names tell the story too. Throughout the Quarter
there were marl (clay) pits, brick-kilns, tile-houses. There were wood-names
like 'ley', meaning clearing in wood, 'riddings', meaning land cleared of
wood : and there were moors and mores, bogs beside streams and in places
where the water-table was higher than a depression in the drift.
Relief and drainage (Map Two)
The interfluvial ridge, Yardley's backbone, runs for six miles between the
Cole and its east-flowing tributaries - which joint it far downstream of the
manor. There is the slightest of gradients from 425 feet at 'The Swan' to
400 feet at Hillhouse, but there is then an abrupt descent of a hundred feet
to the Cole. Clearly the present trickle, despite its ability to rise six
feet in an hour, did not create so wide and deep a valley. The ridge-end is
cut into by the Stich Brook, which formerly rose near the Yew Tree and
entered the Cole east of Stechford Bridge, and by the Yardley Brook whose
two sources were near Yardley Moat and Partridge Road. These tributaries are
or were quite straight, descending directly, in contrast to the Cole which,
having flowed firmly northward for several miles, makes great loops to
eastward across its flood-plain. This is probably due to its having formerly
entered the Tame near Castle Bromwich. Barred by an ice-wall it ponded, the
overflow ultimately finding its way to a confluence with the Blythe. The
great meanders, indicative of the small gradient, frequently flooded the
bordering meadows and made them a wide barrier to travel and use until
proper drainage was undertaken last century.
The watercourses of today are few and small. When drift and topsoil were
full of water, when forest retained rain and released it gradually, there
were multitudinous rills of constant flow. The Cole and its main tributaries
were noble streams, slower to flood but mighty then and slow to decline.
Introduction
Preface
Geology and natural vegetation, and relief and drainage
The foundation of Yardley, and Boundaries
Old names, and old roads
Norman to medieval times, and St. Edburgha's church
Owners of Yardley
Old buildings
Open fields, and Tudor and Stuart times
The river Cole
Georgian times
The nineteenth century
Churches and schools
The twentieth century
Thirty-five years, and Principal sources
Maps |
