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Churches
For many centuries the only church in Yardley was St. Edburgha's, three
miles from our districts. In 1704 Marston Chapel was consecrated at Hall
Green, much nearer. Not until 1878 did Sparkhill have a church, though there
were house meetings and missions earlier. In that year the corrugated iron
chapel of St. John was opened at the Stratford Road corner of Sturge Street,
which was thereupon renamed. The chapel was rebuilt in brick eleven years
later and enparished in 1894 prior to enlargement. St. Bede's having begun
as a mission in the 'Warwick Market' row, moved to its present site opposite
Greet School in 1907. It remains a mission of St. John's in its green 'tin
tabernacle'. Emmanuel Church on Golden Hillock Road (1901) acquired a parish
in 1928 which included the northmost part of St. John's. The latter's
Anglican neighbours now are St. Christopher Springfield (chapel 1907, parish
1911), St. Edmund's Tyseley (1895 and 1931), and St. Agnes Moseley (1884 and
1914). Several Nonconformist churches and chapels have been opened since the
1880's, of which some have closed or been taken over by West Indian or Asian
sects. The Byzantine R. C. Church of the English Martyrs has stood in Evelyn
Road since 1923, though it was not fully consecrated until 1946.
Schools
There was only one school in Yardley, the Trust School by the church, until
1710, when a second one was opened at Hall Green. This was for boys, and was
financed by the Great Trust. There was no school for girls until 1840 and
then only briefly. St. John's School began on its present site in 1856 in a
converted villa. It was rebuilt in 1884, and has been enlarged since World
War two. The Yardley School Board was not elected until twenty years after
the 1870 Act. Four substantial Board Schools were built in the areas of
greatest need; they were Greet and Redhill (Hay Mills) in 1892, and Hall
Green and Yardley Wood in 1893. Greet School had been preceded by a
makeshift school in Bard Street. The new premises in brick, tile and
terra-cotta, were erected on the empty site of Greet Farm. The Yardley Board
also built part of College Road Schools in 1900. Its successor, the
Worcestershire Education Authority, completed them, and added Formans Road
and Golden Hillock Road Schools in 1907 and 1910. The latter year saw the
opening of Yardley Secondary School on the Warwick Road, five years after a
small beginning in Sparkhill Institute. There has been a Catholic School in
Evelyn Road since the 1920s, bombed and rebuilt. Arden Primary School opened
on the site of Sparkhill Grove in 1970. The Secondary schools have 'gone
Comprehensive' since 1969.
Commerce and industry
There was a post office in Greet a century ago, and 30 shops are listed
between St. John's and Percy Roads. They included 5 grocers, 4 butchers, a
fried fish dealer, a tripe dresser, 2 greengrocers, 2 shoe-makers, 2
dress-makers, an iron-monger, and a pawn-broker, a doctor and a chemist,
dealers in furniture and earthenware, a beer retailer, a coal merchant, a
laundress, and a painter of flags and banners. There were five unspecified
shopkeepers and a private school. All these premises were converted terrace
houses. In the 1880s and 1890s some rows were designed as shops, notably
'Warwick Market'; but conversions have continued to the present. On the
Stratford Road large villas became shops, forecourts replacing front
gardens, during the same period. 'Eastbourne Market' was purpose-built in
1899. Two shopping lines developed, from Sparkbrook to the 'Mermaid'
junction and on The Hill about the tram terminus. They have grown steadily
towards each other, and Springfield has developed from small beginnings
early this century. The Greet line has remained fairly static. Corner shops
are to be found about the district, rarely purpose-built, and some have been
re-converted.
When steam-trams brought the green Cole valley within reach of Birmingham's
hordes, public houses were built on what was then the edge of town to cater
for them Such were the new 'Mermaid', the Sportsman, Cherry Arbour, Greet
Inn, Waggon and Horses, and - as the brick tide moved on southward - the
College Arms and the Britannia at Tyseley.
Apart from such
rural crafts as joinery, smithing, brewing, and brick-making, there was no
industry in Greet until the 1880s. The fog signal and fireworks firm,
Wilders, tucked safely away along Seeleys Lane, employed few men. Then an
umbrella factory opened on Percy Road. There was a second fireworks factory
by the Cole south of Formans Road. But apart from those engaged in
brick-making and building, most workers walked to Small Heath factories or
went by tram to Birmingham firms. The James Cycle Co. on Tomey Road provided
local employment before World War One, when there was a great expansion of
the B.S.A. and other firms, and industrial growth on the Hay Hall estate.
Greet and Tyseley Brickworks went out of use in the 1920s. Light engineering
and electrical works multiplied and grew - on Percy Road, on the Warwick
Road just west of the river and sporadically to Stockfield, on Weston and
Reddings Lanes, and in a large area north of Tyseley. A number of small
concerns fitted themselves into yards, gardens and waste patches about the
Mermaid. There were notable extensions to the Serck, Brooke Tool, M.E.M.,
and Lucas works in the 1930s. The wrongly-named Tyseley Industrial Estate
has been developed since World War Two about Seeleys Road. Burbury
Brickworks closed in the late 1950s, and the enormous pit has been infilled
with industrial waste.
Introduction
Preface
Relief and drainage, geology, and the natural
landscape
First footers and Anglo-Saxon
settlement
The manor of Yardley, the boundaries
of Yardley, and the 'Manor' of Greet
Ancient roads, ancient buildings, and watermills
Turnpike roads, bridges, and administration
Public transport
Enclosures
Urbanisation, and amenities and services
Churches, schools, and commerce and industry
Between the Wars and since, and references
Maps |
