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Churches
Until 1704 St. Edburgha's Church had been the only one in the parish, more
than five difficult miles away for the folk of Yardley Wood. In that year
Job Marston's Chapel was consecrated opposite Hall Green Hall. It was to
remain Marston Chapel until 1907 despite enlargement in 1860 to accommodate
the increased congregation, because a new parish church had been provided by
Sarah Taylor's beneficence on a Yardley Wood Common site beside the canal
bridge. This was and is Christ Church, in Early English style, consecrated
in 1849. Its parish included the southern third of Yardley and a part of
Kings Norton.
In 1878 an iron mission chapel was opened on Sparkhill. This was replaced by
a brick building in 1889 which was enparished as St. John's in 1894 prior to
enlargement. Meanwhile in 1884 a chapel-of-ease to St. Mary's Moseley had
been built on Wake Green just inside Yardley. This is St. Agnes', later
given a parish which took in part of our Quarter: its tower was not complete
until 1932. St. Christopher's (Springfield) was consecrated as a
chapel-of-ease to St. John's in 1907, receiving its own parish four years
later. Holy Cross (Billesley) was a parish church from its opening in 1937.
When a new church was opened in Highters Heath, Christ Church lost that part
of its parish which lay beyond the Yardley boundary.
The English Martyrs R. C. Church began as a mission in 1908. Three years
later the school at the top of Evelyn Road opened, its hall serving as a
chapel until the Byzantine church alongside was completed in 1923. Similarly
Our Lady of Lourdes School hall was used from its building in 1935 until the
church was opened in 1966. Nonconformist chapels were built as follows:
Slade Lane 1888, Church of Christ Sparkhill 1893, Springfield Road 1916,
Brook Lane Baptist Chapel and Trittiford Road Methodist Church in 1928,
Stratford Road Springfield 1936, and five later ones.
Schools
Hall Green Charity School for boys, an offshoot of the Trust School in
Yardley village and like it supported by the Great Trust, was opened in
1712, on the site of the builders' yard next to the Horseshoe Inn on
Stratford Road. The Swinburne family provided its schoolmasters for 150
years. There were enlargements in 1825; in 1898 it closed and its pupils
went to the nearby Board School. A National (Anglican) School for girls was
held in a rented room somewhere in Hall Green from 1833-93. There was a
church school in Yardley Wood from 1838, held in a meeting house which also
served as a chapel until Christ Church was built. The school closed when the
Board School opened, and the building was demolished two decades ago. Its
site was near the present vicarage. Spring Hill College for
Congregationalist Ministers was built of stone and brick in Gothic style on
Wake Green in 1854: its name came from the original college site in
Birmingham. Two years later St. John's School began work off the Stratford
Road. The present building is 1884 with additions to the 1960s. The College
and its grounds were to be in succession a convalescent home, botanical
gardens, recruiting centre, and Moseley Grammar School (1922). Now it is
part of Moseley Comprehensive.
Yardley School Board was not formed until two decades after the 1870 Act. In
a burst of activity it built four brick and terra-cotta schools, two of them
in our Quarter - Hall Green and Yardley Wood, both 1893. The former is the
only one of the four to retain the gable inscription showing its provenance.
College Road (Springfield) Schools opened in 1900. Worcestershire Education
Committee succeeded the Board two years later and added to the College Road
complex, but built no new schools around here. It did however provide the
first purpose-built secondary school in Yardley. In 1904 the Board started a
school for older children in the Sparkhill Institute, vacant after the Rural
District Council had moved to the new Council House. Yardley Secondary
School was opened at Tyseley six years later, and the Institute staff and
pupils moved there. Pupils going to this central site from anywhere in the
ancient parish could be considered for an educational grant from the Charity
Trust. The English Martyrs R. C. School was at work the following year.
Birmingham
Education Committee had to provide school places for the ever-growing child
population of municipal and private estates in the Quarter between the wars.
Billesley Schools (Al Fresco Folly style) were 1925-6, the secondary
accommodation being enlarged in 1938, Yardley Wood Schools 1929-36, the new
buildings at Hall Green and the Sparkhill Commercial School (Institute site)
1929, and Highters Heath 1931. Our Lady of Lourdes was four years later.
Moseley Secondary Modern School in Glassbox style opened off College Road in
1955, and Chilcote Primary three years later. A new infant School was
provided at Hall Green in the 1960s, but the Board School building is
part-used by Juniors. The largest complex of schools was built on the
northern edge of Billesley Common: a grammar school opened in 1956, a
secondary modern/technical (bilateral) school in 1959, and the whole is now
combined as Swanshurst (Comprehensive) School. Hall Green Technical College
was opened on the site of Cambrai House (Kyotts Lake House), with Hall Green
Bilateral School across the railway, in the 1960s.
Introduction
Geology, Natural vegetation, and relief and drainage
Early settlement, and Saxon beginnings
Boundaries, Domesday Yardley, and Moats and
earthworks
Medieval times, and Ancient roads
Perambulations
Old houses, Local government, and Tudor to Georgian
times
Families and houses
Georgian times
Bridges, Watermills, and the Stratford Canal
The Tithe Map
Churches, and Schools
Yardley Rural District, The City of Birmingham, and
Urbanisation
Industry, Between the Wars, and Public transport
Swanshurst Quarter in 1979, and Short bibliography
Maps |
