| Urbanisation to 1900
At the start of the 20th century most of Greet Quarter was shared
by a few large farms. These were Moat and Highfield Farms on Coventry
Road, Lyndon Farm on the boundary, Hay Hall, Waterloo, Stockfield,
and Greet Manor Farms. Built-up areas were clearly defined. Long
terraces of tunnel-back houses were new-built or in building at
Spark Green, West Greet, Tyseley Hill, Stockfield Road south end,
and Mansfield Road. There were eight streets, largely complete,
in the industrial village of Hay Mills. On Yardley Road south
of the canal there were mansions in large gardens, and the cul-de-sacs
down to the canal were partly developed. Warwick Road was built
up as a residential street from Westley Brook almost to Clifton
(Oxford) Road. Arden, Flint Green, and Sherbourne Roads were on
the way to completion, as was Station Road. Streets laid out but
little or not at all developed were Alexander, Greswolde Park
and Dudley Park Roads, while The Avenue was built up only on the
railway side.
The land-use divisions of Broomhall Quarter in 1900 were no
less marked. Sparkhill's terraced streets occupied the wedge between
the two main roads. Development at Acocks Green was confined within
Fox Hollies, Greenwood, and Victoria Roads. Only Westfield and
Botteville Roads were practically complete, other streets having
long rows of houses on one side only - thus Victoria, Greenwood,
Hazelwood, Shirley, and Broad Roads. Notable of the pattern, which
was largely that of doveloping old lanes, was the great amount
of land enclosed between these, to be used for nurseries and in
recent times providing sites for schools or 'town house' estates
on cul-de-sacs. Elsewhere in Broomhall there were only three tiny
hamets - East Greet opposite the Manor Farm, Tyseley Hill by the
Britannia Inn, and 'The Hamlet' at Hall Green, a scatter of handsome
houses built by the Severnes in the 1880s and 1890s. Otherwise,
the whole Quarter was parcelled out among a score of mansions,
a few inns, and thirteen farms - Greet Mill Hill, Shaftmoor, Tyseley,
Fox Hollies, Hiron, Hall Green and Broom Hall, Redstone, Pool,
Fox Green, Sandpits, Gospel House and Robin Hood Farms. There
were shops for local needs, most of them in converted houses,
on the main roads, and the start of shopping centres at West Greet
and Acocks Green, at Spark Green, on Sparkhill, and at the Swan.
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