| First settlement in Yardley
We know nothing of any colonisation earlier than the Saxon, though
that does not necessarily mean that there was none. Perhaps as
early as the seventh century but far from certainly, Hwiccans
(West Saxons) moved down the ridge east of the Cole and established
themselves in a region that was generally settled by Anglian folk
who had come from the east. The first open fields of Yardley were
on the dry, sandy soil overlooking Stechford. Few as the Saxon
settlers were (in 972 there were only five households), some of
them must surely have lived farther south: how else, even in that
period of small populations and much undeveloped land, could so
few have maintained their claim to so large a holding (eleven
and a half square miles)? (Tyseley, the farm made in a natural
clearing in Arden by a man perhaps named Tissa, could have been
one pre-Norman site). But we have no written evidence of assarts
(small farms made in virgin waste by enterprising individuals)
earlier than 1171. By then Hugh de la Haye or an ancestor had
founded his 'haye' (hege, an enclosure in the common waste) on
a dry, clear gravelly patch in the forest, fencing his ploughed
land to keep out wild animals.
For a summary of the geology and
natural vegetation of the area, go to this
map.
From 13th-14th Century taxrolls we can extract tenants' names
which indicate a scatter of population throughout the manor. This
information and much more is available through the five years'
research of the Discovering Yardley Group, led by Victor Skipp
M.A. His
Medieval Yardley summarises their findings and
gives a view of Yardley and its people at various times up to
the Tudor period. To the given names of some tenants are added
place-names, several being recorded for the first time: thus we
can confirm that people wore living at Grete (Greet), Hyon (Hiron
Hall), Bromhale (Broom Hall), Tisseleye (Tyseley), (Fox) Hollies,
Haw (Hall) Green, Hay Hall, and Shirleye - not the modern Shirley,
though it meant the same, the clearing on the edge of the shire,
but the Gilbertstone Avenue area. But where were the ten taxpayers
of Tenchlee, a name which has not survived?
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