| Tenchlee (Tenchley)
At some time unknown, perhaps the l2th Century, which was a time
of local population growth, Yardley's second field system had
its beginning. It is possible that the other known communal settlements
in the manor, those of Greet and Lea (Hall) were of similar age:
but the number of taxpayers is less for these than for Tenchlee,
and it is reasonable to assume that the earliest of the three
would be the largest. Tenchlee was not an extension of the original
northern fields which overlay the ridges between the Cole, Stich
Brook, and Yardley Brook. The densest oak forest in the whole
manor extended on drift-free clay from just south of the present
Yardley village almost to Coventry Road, and this was to be cleared
relatively late by generations of farmers living at its edges.
The nearest land suitable for communal cultivation was the gently-sloped
and well-drained ridge south of the highway, between the Cole
and Westley Brook valleys. This area was doubtless already in
use as a grazing-ground. On the sand and gravel capping of the
ridge the wood was sparser and more easily cleared, while the
soil was more easily ploughed than the claylands, if less potentially
fertile. It is notable that, like Hay Hall, all the early farm
sites were at spring-lines on the edges of the drift cap or upon
the cap where there were the advantages of dryness plus an abundance
of water from shallow wells.
Within a few seasons one large field was made and fenced. All
who helped took a share of each season's land, the shares being
for convenience in ploughing furlong strips running downhill.
Ultimately one man would work a number of strips in several parts
of the various fields, each separated from its neighbours by an
unploughed baulk of turf. In accordance with the custom of the
manor, the whole of a field would be sown with the same crop or
left fallow in its turn.
The first field of Tenchley was called Heyne (High) Field:
in modern terms its bounds were Arden, Stockfield, Mansfield,
and Wynford Roads. The second field lay to the east of this, which
then became Over Heyne Field, and the new one Nether Heyne Field.
The ancient ridgeway was on the line of Broad Road, Flint Green
Road, Rookwood Road, the alley from Alexander to Douglas Road,
Dalston Road and. Wynford Road, and Yardley Road, so that the
two fields were on either side of it: Yardley Road probably began
as the eastern perimeter track of Nether Field, intended to be
temporary but for reasons we can only guess at, such as serious
population decline due to plague, perhaps marking the limit of
the ploughland for long enough to become a well-worn route: so
that when clearance down to Westley Brook was resumed, the track
was not ploughed out but remained as the way between the hamlets
of Westley Brook and Tenchley. Nether Field stretched, in modern
terms, between the line of the ridgeway detailed above, the Warwick
Canal, Westley Brook, and Sherbourne/Oxford Roads.
Three streams met just to the east of the spot where now the
canal makes its sharp southward turn, and there lay Deep More
(more = moor, bog), a morass which discouraged further clearance
to the east. In dry weather the water-meadows were sometimes usable
for stock-grazing, and hay crops could be taken from there, but
the customary pastures were to the north-west and south of the
open fields. They were (later) named as Pinfold Green (Stockfield,
Yardley, Mansfield Roads), Marlpit Green (Waterloo brickfield),
Flint, Fox, and Acocks Greens, and Tibbotts Green (Shirley Road
playing fields). As the community grew, doubtless not without
setbacks due to plague, crop failure and animal disease, not to
mention war, more arable land was needed. That clearance took
place only to the north may be explicable by the arc of individual
holdings which surrounded Tenchley Fields: Hay Hall, Greet demesne,
Tyseley, Hollies, Hiron Hall, Acocks Green House and the estates
of religious houses. (See below). The new clearances, Cross Field
and Broom Furlong, were made between Yardley Road, Coventry Road,
(War)Well Lane, which then extended farther south, and the canalside
path. Today Yardley Cemetery occupies much of these fields.
Where did the taxpayers live? Yardley Village was very small,
due in part to poor water supply, and some of its farmers lived
around the field-edges, nearer to their holdings. The same was
most probably true of Tenchley, though water was no problem thereabout.
If there were a cluster of dwellings, it would be where a vestigial
hamlet survived into the 20th century, about the junction of Yardley,
Mansfield, and Wynford Roads: for there was the pinfold for penning
strayed stock, there were an inn and a smithy, and three early
buildings still stand. But the known scatter of houses about the
former field edges, few of which are left now, suggest that Tenchley
was a dispersed settlement. The disappearance of the name is easier
to understand if that were so: there was no parish of Tenchley,
no church to perpetuate the name. Its derivation is unknown: if
it means what it seems to mean, there must have been some good
reason for naming a settlement after a fish! Was Westley Brook
full of the fecund tench, which would provide welcome protein
in meatless winters and unfailing food when harvests were poor?
Most people today would call the suggested site of Tenchley
hamlet 'South Yardley', but this is a modern misnomer, probably
dating from 1852: the south of Yardley Manor is three miles away,
where the name of Yardley Wood commemorates the last of the primeval
forest to disappear.
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