| Later churches
The information that follows is largely derived from the Victoria
County History of Warwickshire, Vol. VII (Birmingham).
Marston Chapel served the Anglicans of Broomhall and Swanshurst
Quarters from 1704. In 1849 the opening of Christ Church on the
former Yardley Wood Common eased the lot of parishioners in the
south. Those of Acocks Green acquired their own chapel in 1866,
and this was enparished a year later. As elsewhere - Hall Green
for instance - the parish name tended to supersede other district
names. St. Mary's Acocks Green was built off Warwick Road at Westley
Brook in the Early English style. It was enlarged in 1882, and
after bomb damage in 1940 major restoration was necessary .There
was a mission in Spring Lane (1881-c. 1905), replaced by St. Gabriel's
Summer Road (c. 1905-26). Bishop Westcott Hall in Greenwood Avenue
was opened in 1936.
At the entrance to his Hay Mill Works James Horsfall built
cottages, a school, and a small chapel, which was licensed for
worship in 1864. When he replaced it with St. Cyprian's chapel
nine years later, it was his fancy to erect the building over
the tail-race from Hay Mill, so that water flows in a culvert
under the south entrance, emerging beneath the west wall. The
chapel was enparished in 1878. After meeting in some odd places
Congregationalists built Yardley's first Nonconformist chapel
on Rushall Lane in 1827. This was closed when a large yellow-brick
church was opened on the Warwick Road corner 33 years later: but
although that church closed and was demolished a few years ago,
the old chapel still stands on Stockfield Road, blackened and
camouflaged by a shed frontage. Another Congregational chapel
was opened on Coventry Road Hay Mill(s) in 1900.
Wesleyan Methodists had a mission in Shirley Road from 1863.
Their new chapel was opened in 1882, and enlarged 1927-31. The
Mansfield Road Wesleyan Chapel dates from 1883, and that in Reddings
Lane from 1924. A Methodist mission in Church Road Yardley before
1873 was the fore-runner of Coventry Road Church (1929). There
were other chapels, in Station Road Acocks Green (1892) and Warwick
Road Tyseley (1915). The Christadelphian chapel in Station Road
is dated 1902, and the next year a Baptist chapel opened in Alexander
Road: it was rebuilt in 1914, with a frontage on Yardley Road.
A Salvation Army Citadel was built on the site of Sparkhill tramcar
depot in 1909, and the Brethren's Church in Waterloo Road is two
years younger.
St. Edmund's Tyseley began as a mission of St. John's Sparkhill
in 1895. An iron building was licensed in 1913 and became a parish
church in 1931-2. The present church was completed in 1940.
Catholic masses wore conducted in Acocks Green houses during
the 19th century, but there was no mission hall until that of
1905 on Warwick Road. The permanent Church of the Sacred Heart
and Holy Souls was completed in 1940 and consecrated five years
later.
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