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The Dolphins (variant spellings) farmed about fifty acres and lived at
Swanshurst Farm without interruption from 1480 until 1854, when bachelor
John died. (An announcement of his forthcoming marriage in Aris's Birmingham
Gazette in 1826 was contradicted in the next issue). The farm was heavily
mortgaged to permit purchase of a large tract of land between Robin Hood and
Baldwins Lane (Hillclose Farm) in the 1840s. To the 15-16th
century building a plain brick wing was added in Stuart times, and the rest
of the house was then bricked between the timbers. There were large
outbuildings. After John's death Swanshurst served as a slum tenement
presided over by the Widow Tomlinson. The brick wing collapsed, and vandals
caused further damage when the house stood empty for three decades, then in
1906 an eccentric solicitor (Stanbury Eardley) went to live in the ruin. He
believed that it stood on the site of a Saxon chapel, claiming to have found
the roof and fluted wooden pillars of its chancel. It was Eardley who
revived or invented he story of King Alfred's association with Swanshurst.
He was said to have made the house that then occupied the site his
headquarters while his army camped in the earthwork nearby, prior to a
battle against the Danish host on Berry Mound. The only documentary support
for the story, and that no more than recorded hearsay, is the claim by the
aggrieved peasants in 1221 that Swanshurst waste was theirs by original
grant of King Alfred. After Eardley's death the house was bought as scrap by
William A. Clarke of Moseley and demolished in 1917. Some of the timbers
were used as decorative features in a new house called Swanshurst in Russell
Road, Moseley. The barns were pulled down three years later, when Swanshurst
Lane was about to be built up. The actual site of the old farm was behind
the house called, in pursuance of the legend, Berry Mount.
The Grevis (modern Greaves) family were yeoman farmers living in Moseley
village. They became rich through cheap purchase of church lands at the
Dissolution. Sir Richard Grevis bought Greethurst from the Holtes in 1578,
and the title to and remaining land of Yardley manor from the Crown in 1629.
It was the Grevises' ownership of parts of the Quarter which caused the
spread of the name Moseley into it: thus Swanshurst Pool was known as
Moseley New Pool to distinguish it from Old Pool on Coldbath Brook. A
succession of spendthrift heirs so reduced the estate that when the last
Richard Grevis died all that was left barely sufficed to pay his debts. A
few years later, in 1766, John Taylor acquired the lordship and 1013 acres,
all that remained of the manorial land. Taylor, a wealthy manufacturer and
co-founder of Lloyds Bank, lived at Bordesley Hall. Like nearly all of
Yardley's lords he and his heirs never lived in the manor, but they were
jealous of their game and fishing rights: dire warnings were given of
punishments for poaching. Most of the Taylor holdings were sold in and after
1913. All manorial privileges were ended in World War II, but the courtesy
holder of the title of lord of Yardley is Jonathan Taylor of Lower Quinton
Hall near Stratford. He attended the Millenary celebrations.
Grove Farm, a Maxstoke Priory property, was acquired at the Dissolution by
the Greswolds. They were lords of Greet Manor and lay rectors of Yardley.
The timbered farmhouse stood off the Stratford Road on a site now enclosed
by Grove and Greswold Roads, still marked by some tall trees, until 1896
when a Greswold heir (who had added an 'e' to his adopted name) sold the
land for building. In Green Road the low farmhouse miscalled 'The Chalet' is
of Stuart date: an outbuilding still displays the chequerboard timbering
that is hidden under the stucco of the house. In, 1721 Sarehole Hall was
rebuilt. Its outbuildings, some of which still stand, were added more than a
century later. The house was replaced by a bungalow in the late 1950s. Known
early Georgian buildings, all now demolished, were the Russells’ home at
Showell Green (destroyed in the 1791 riots), Showell Green House, which may
have been a rebuilding on the Russell site and was latterly the Taylor
Memorial Home, the Mermaid Inn, Springfield House, Spartans off Green Road,
the White House (in front of Billesley Police Station), and Cateswell. Later
ones, some from the early decades of the 19th century, were
Coldbath, Ivyhouse in Brook Lane, Titterford, Moorlands, Quagmire, Paradise
and Brook Farms, Titterford House (formerly Tatterford Farm) and the Bull's
Head. Several of those had Yardley roof-tiles in broad bands of two shades
of red. Most of them replaced earlier buildings on the same sites. There is
no information about the appearance or building history of Shrubbery and
Sparkhill Farms; Oaklands, Ivyhouse, Barton's Folly and Derbyshire's Farms
on Baldwins Lane; Robin Hood, Cole Bank, and Woodlands Farms. Billesley
Farmhouse was rebuilt in the 1880s. A consequence of enclosure was the
departure of a number of families from hovels near the common borders:
either they had no documented rights to use of the land, or they could not
afford to hedge and ditch the small pieces allotted to them. So they sold
out and moved as employees into garrets on the large rebuilt farms. Many
cottages disappeared. The only cluster is at Showell Green where stand the
row referred to above, Yew Tree Cottage, and the older part of No.123
opposite.
Nearby on Showell Green Lane (Shrubbery Lane) a Regency mansion called
Showellhurst stood until 1978. Its shutters were not ornamental when it was
built, for armed assault on isolated houses was then common. About 1840 were
built The Firs on Yardley Wood Road (the bay windows are fifty years later),
the Bulls' Head, and Yardley Wood Cottage. Warstock House and Springfield on
Yardley Wood Road opposite Woodstock Road (not to be confused with the
Georgian house of that name near Springfield Farm) were built at
mid-century, as was Highfield House. Springfield's site is a small block of
flats, but the others survive, as does Sparkhill House, embedded in the end
of a row of shops on the Stratford Road/Showell Green Lane corner. In 1857
the Cotterell Charity built two almshouses opposite Christ Church, which are
still occupied. Ashfield Hall, a chequerboard house, became 'Ashleigh
Grange' in its last years when it was a mere residence.
The names of some
of the Quarter's tenant farmers are known: they include the Cotterells of
Paradise, the Bissells of Billesley and Sarehole, the Webbs of Little
Sarehole and Brook Farms, the Poultons at Six Ways (Robin Hood Farm?), the
Greens at Hall Green Hall, and the Glovers at the Bull's Head. That inn,
before and after rebuilding, was the venue for all kinds of rural
entertainment - flower shows, horse and foot races, pugilistic bouts and
cock mains.
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 |
