|
The Manor of Yardley
Sparkhill and Greet's parent manor is dealt with fully elsewhere. The
distance here from of Yardley village is such - three miles - that our
district's connection with it is a matter for wonder, especially when the
smallness of the early population is known. Whether originally so or not, by
the 10th century the manor of Yardley covered 11˝ square miles,
from Castle Bromwich to Solihull Lodge, and from Spark Brook to Olton.
Hereabout the boundary was established along Cole and Spark; to the north
was Bordesley once part of Aston, and westward was Moseley in the even
larger manor of (Kings) Norton. The common boundaries must have been fixed
by negotiation. Watercourses were used whenever convenient, and elsewhere
the boundaries were usually roughly straight lines marked by blazed trees,
banks and ditches. Fences were not erected, because it was the custom in
Arden for stock to be allowed to graze freely across borders as long as they
were not driven. There were few tracks to provide recognisable limits,
though the 'perambulation tracks' of later bounds-beating often became lanes
if they went where there was need to go. Yardley's west-bounding tracks were
examples of these.
The boundaries of
Yardley
A Charter has survived which gives Yardley's boundaries in the year 972. In
this as earlier grant of the manor is confirmed by King Edgar, the 'meres'
given include colle, munds dean, great oak tree, and bull well, for this
part of the manor. The dean was doubtless the boggy Spark vale, the oak may
well have stood at the north end of Belle Walk, and the well or spring was
possibly the source of the Showell Green Brook. Colle was the River Cole.
The importance of the Spark as a boundary is worth noting, especially since
its virtual disappearance. In its time it has separated two people (Angles
and Saxons), two kingdoms (Mercia and Hwiccia), two sees (Lichfield and
Worcester), two shires (Warwick & Worcester), three Manors (Aston,
Bromsgrove and Yardley - later Bordesley, Norton, and Greet), three Parishes
(Bromsgrove, chapelry of St. Nicholas Kings Norton, later chapelry of St.
Mary Moseley, Aston, later chapelry of St. John Deritend and St. Edburgha
Yardley, later chapelry of St. John Sparkhill), three Civil Parishes (Aston,
Kings Norton, Yardley), four administrative 'ends' within them (Bordesley
End, Moseley Yield, Greet and Swanshurst Quarters), the two sides in the
Civil War (Warwickshire for Parliament, Worcestershire for King), three Poor
Law Unions (Aston, Kings Norton and Northfield, and Solihull), a Borough
Ward (Bordesley of Birmingham) and two Local Boards (Balsall Heath and Kings
Norton and Northfield), and two Wards of a Rural District (Sparkhill East
and West of Yardley), five City Wards and three Constituencies, and three
Postal Districts!
In 1495, a surviving Presentment tell us, twelve jurors of Yardley met and
walked with a dozen from every neighbouring manor in turn along their common
boundaries, and took their oaths upon the correctness of the 'Meares'. Local
ones were listed as Spark Brook, Spark Green, Low Lane (Stoney Lane), the
Gilden Corner (perhaps the corner of Moseley Tax Yield), the greenway (Belle
Walk) and Bulley Lane (Billesley Lane, wrongly named, for the lane led to
the ancient settlement site of Bulley, now occupied by Moseley Golf
Clubhouse). The Yardleians took leave of the Bordesleians and greeted the
Nortonians at Highgate Road's junction with Stoney Lane, going south with
them as far as Highters Heath. These bounds remained unaltered, though the
status of the territories on either side altered until they ceased to have
other than City Ward significance in 1912. True, in 1896 the boundary was
apparently moved from the east side of Stoney Lane to its centre, but this
due to the widening of the lane to cover the stagnant Spark and provide a
road surface fit for tramcar tracks.
The 'Manor' of Greet
Some land in 'Yardley and Greet' was sold in 1254 by William de Edricheston
to the Prior and Convent of Studley, which held it until the Dissolution of
Religious Houses about 1540. The implication of the two names in the sale is
that Yardley and Greet were regarded as separate, and possibly the latter
had, like Hay Hall nearby, some semi-independent status. As a church
property, in different ownership from Yardley which was a possession of the
Abbey of St. Mary at Pershore: it doubtless claimed such rights. Greet was
certainly a communal settlement with its own open field system. The Lay
Subsidy Rolls of 1280 listed four taxpayers 'de Greet' - Adam, Jordan,
Ranulph, and Henry - who were presumably the richest of the tenants.
The great fields which they and others farmed in furlong strips were Heyne
(High) Field west of the Stratford Road, Gravel Field east of it, and Berry
Field north of the Warwick Road. Adam and Reginald Spark, perhaps living at
the edge of the common pasture, Spark Green; William and Robert de
Greethurst, south of Showell Green, and Henry de Tisseleye (Tyseley) were
contemporaries of the Greet tenants. In addition to the fields and the
greens, there were the water-meadows, which Greet had in abundance.
Where the Greeters lived is hard to discover. The known but now vanished
hamlet near the 'manor house' (about the modern Greet Inn) may have been a
later development. It would have been odd for farmers to live on the far
side of a river subject to fierce and sudden floods from their fields and
stock, even though the ford may have been an easy one at other times. It is
likely that when the great fields were under cultivation, tenants lived at
their edges with no nucleated settlement; this seems to have been so
elsewhere in the manor, at Yardley itself and at Tenchley (Acocks
Green/Stockfield). When later the fields were subject to piece-meal
enclosure by exchange and purchase, farmers would acquire land about their
dwellings, so that in time Greet would look like an area that had been
settled individually rather than communally. Unfortunately such peripheral
farm sites are few about The Hill: Greet Farm, Sparkhill and Shrubbery
Farms, and perhaps a farm near the 'Mermaid', are the only ones likely to be
ancient.
Greet was described
as 'manerium de Grete' in 1547, and 'manerium vocatum La Gritte' in 1563. In
Humphrey Greswold's will seven years later it was 'the manner of Greet'. He
was a local magnate, lay Rector of Yardley, who had acquired the Studley
Priory Estates among others. If Greet manor house was his home, it must have
been a rebuilding of the Prior's steward's building - probably the original
moated site was abandoned as at Blakesley and Moseley, the new house being
built beside it. Until the Dissolution the land surrounding The Hill was
owned by Maxstoke and Studley Priories; the Grevises of Moseley Hall, later
to be lords of Yardley, and the Greswolds were the acquisitors. By 1570
those estates were wholly enclosed for pasture, and this was probably the
case with Greet Fields. Eight years later Greethurst, a Holte property, was
sold to Richard Grevis. It was used thereafter as a private hunting
preserve.
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 |
