| Church End's name was doubtless of ancient
use. A manor 7˝miles long, 11˝ square miles in area, would need location
names for its districts more than most, and the adoption of that one for the
northernmost of three administrative divisions of Yardley in the reign of
Elizabeth I was no more than a continuance.
The Civil Parish of Yardley then established, co-extensive with the manor
and the ecclesiastical parish of St. Edburgha, was too large for a single
set of Overseers. These unfortunates, selected annually from among the chief
tenants, were unpaid and untrained for their onerous duties of maintaining
highways and succouring the poor. To ease their load, the parish was divided
into three 'ends', conveniently separated by the Coventry and Warwick Roads,
and the three 'ends' each had their own Overseers. A century later the south
of Yardley was sufficiently populous to require a further division into two,
thenceforward called Broomhall and Swanshurst Quarters. In this publication
'the Quarter' will always mean the Church End Quarter, all of the manor and
parish north of the Coventry Road.
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 |
