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Antiquities
In 1965 the area
that was once the manor of Yardley is almost entirely developed. The still
largely rural landscape that existed ten years after Yardley had become part of
Birmingham in 1911 has been transformed, and though open spaces remain they are
almost without exception in restricted use as parks, playing fields, and
allotments. The old pattern of lanes survives nearly everywhere, but the roads
themselves, though in a very variable state of reconstruction due to the
interruption of the war and post-war cost, are rarely in their rural state:
between them large estates of private and municipal housing, and factory areas
have been built. Farms and cottages, barns and watermills, have no place in city
suburbs, and few buildings more than a century old are left: the survivors
dwindle every year.
Vanished antiquities
1. Moated Sites, There have certainly
been 8 of these, perhaps 11, in Yardley. But this is unlikely to have been the
grand total, for doubtless many of the known early settlement sites had moats
which were filled with rubbish or contracted to farm ponds before antiquarians
became interested in recording water defences. All the known Yardley moats have
been infilled this century. They were at Glebe Farm, a double moat east of
Yardley Church, on Moat Lane, on Coventry Road west of Steyning Road, south of
Tyseley Farm, extensive moats about Hyron and Broom Halls, and on Highfield Road
near Painswick Road. The possible ones were 'the Moats' below Brigfield Crescent
on Yardley Wood Road, and two sites on the eastern bound, where Broomhall Brook
crosses Gospel Lane and just south of Warwick Road. All the moats were dug in
Keuper Marl, which retains water, and were fed by a stream or directly by a
spring from the drift capping nearby.
The only other earthworks known are
'Clay Walls' near Langley Hall, and an 11-acre site at Swanshurst: even the site
of the latter, which was ploughed out in the 1820s, is not certain, and no guess
can be made about its date or purpose.
2. Ancient Buildings. The former dwellings within the moats have all gone. 'Allestrey
Hall' near St.Edburgha's Church, was demolished about 1700, Glebe Farm c.1934,
Hyron Hall c.1927 and Broom Hall c.1950. The last three were all rebuildings, of
the late 18th or early 19th centuries. Nothing is known of buildings on the
other sites, all having disappeared at dates before detailed maps were produced.
The oldest buildings to survive into
this century, but now gone, were probably Swanshurst, home of the Dolphins 15 -
19th centuries, a 15th century Hall with a half-timbered wing of 1600 and a
brick one added in the later 1700s, demolished 1917: Hall Green Hall 16th
century, with one brick wing and alterations of later date, home of Marstons and
Severnes; demolished 1936: Shaftmoor, 16th century, timbered and plastered,
where lived Greswolds and Steedmans, demolished c.1929 : Vintage Cottage 16th
century and later - demolished 1964: Grove Farm 1651, half-timbered and later
bricked in, enlarged 1815, Greswolds and Izods, demolished 1896: Field Gate
Farm, 16th century and later: Ashleigh Grange 16th century, half-timbered Hall,
demolished between the wars: Stockfield Farm 17th century, half-timbered,
demolished c.1925. Buildings which disappeared earlier were Greetville (site
unknown), Bulley Hall, and Greet Manor House: the last two were replaced by
farms called Billesley Hall and Manor Farm, which have also gone.
The four windmills of Yardley had been razed
by the mid-19th century. Of the watermills, eight in number, Lower Greet (Tyseley
Brook) was first to go, in the 18th century, and the others, except Sarehole,
have all been demolished since then: Lady Mill (soon after 1834), Greet (1855),
Hay Mill (1865), Broomhall (1870?), Wash Mill and Titterford (1926 fire, 1936).
Many buildings were replaced by brick
structures in the 18th and 19th centuries. More than 60 farms and many cottages
have been razed since 1900, and other demolitions have included Hall Green
School, Hiron, Fox Hollies, and Broom Halls, Cateswell, Tyseley Grange, the
Workhouse, Gilbertstone and Acocks Green House, Lea Hall, Paradise, Coldbath
Cottage, Stechford station, and Stockfield Hall.
Surviving antiquities
1. Buildings. The oldest buildings left
in Yardley are St.Edburgha's Church 13 - 15th centuries: the Trust School
alongside, 15th century and later; Hay Hall, a 15th century hall with a 16th
century solar wing, brick-encased, and a gabled SW front after 1810;; and Blakesley Hall, 16th C half-timbered with brick-encased ground floor. Dating
probably from the 17th C, but with an elegant Georgian casing on three sides is
Pinfold (Mansfield) House. Marston Chapel (Church of the Ascension) was built by
1704, and enlarged in the late 1850s.
Surviving 18th century farms are
Yardley, Hillhouse, Moorlands, Colehall. Other buildings of the period are
Sarehole Mill, the former Taylor Memorial Home, and cottages in Yardley village,
Yardley Road, Amington Road, Arden Road, Sparkhill, Showell Green, Paradise Lane
and Prince of Wales Lane. Buildings of the early and middle 19th century are
Acocks Green Station, the Bull's Head, Christ Church, and Robin Hood.
2. Other Antiquities. Parts of the
ancient open fields of Yardley remain undeveloped as recreation grounds : these
are Church Field, Stich Meadow, in Manor Road R. G., Stichford Field beside
Yardley Fields Road, and a small part of Stockfield in Wynford Road Recreation
Ground.
The Coldbath (before 1750) and Swanshurst
(before 1759) fishpools, and Titterford millpool, survive as amenities.
Titterford head and tail races, the start of Sarehole head race and the dam of
Old Pool on Coldbath Brook, and the side race of Hay Mill, can still be seen.
The Warwick Canal (1793-9) was widened in 1929 and afterwards, as the Grand
Union, and all its humped bridges have been replaced except that on Woodcock
Lane North. On the Stratford Canal (c.1795 in Yardley) only High Bridge on
School Road remains. Other old bridges are New Bridge before 1813 and Four
Arches c.1822.
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