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Geology (Map Two)
The Quarter's underlying rock is Keuper Marl, a stiff red clay 800 feet
thick. This is impervious to water, its fine particles being waterbound. It
will mix readily with surface water to form a soft sticky mud. Upon the clay
are variable deposits of glacial drift, consisting chiefly of sand and
gravel, with some boulder clay, which were strewn thickly over the area at
the end of the last Ice Age. This material has been washed off the valley
sides by melt-water torrents, but patches of it remain at places in the Cole
bed where they form fording points. Drift survives also as a capping on the
inter-fluvial ridges, where it forms the highest ground: being relatively
porous it soon dries out on top, but it holds water well and springs flow
from its edges across the clay below. Overlying both drift and clay is a
hundred centuries' accumulation of topsoil, which is wetter and richer in
humus on the latter. The larger stream beds are floored with alluvium,
fine-grained silt, brought down and deposited by floods: in natural
conditions this is waterlogged. The Cole valley and the lower courses of the
Chinn, Shirley, and Spark Brooks are narrow strips of silt bordered by clay
slopes (see maps 2 and 3). There are V-shaped exposures of clay extending
from the Cole up the valleys of the Billesley, Primrose, Robin Hood, and
Showell Green Brooks.
An illustration of the accumulation of silt is provided by Trittiford Mill
Pool. At the upper end, where the headrace dumps its suspended load when
checked by the static water of the lake, a delta of black sediment forms. In
twenty recent years the bird-sanctuary islands became accessible from shore
in dry seasons, and only a narrow channel twisted past them to deeper water.
By 1972 the pool became too shallow for boats, and a costly mechanical
operation was required to dredge it out. The silt was used to raise the
river bank upstream.
The water-worn riverbed gravel which provided a ford and a district name -
Greet - can be seen on the upstream side of the Stratford Road bridge over
the Cole. It creates an island there unless periodically removed, like that
which used to exist at the Warwick Road crossing: to some extent the bridge
piers prevent the stone from rolling on downstream. Our gardens contain
hundreds of these smooth pebbles, fragments of rock brought by glaciers from
Welsh mountains: cultivation mixes topsoil and drift together. Street
excavations reach the clay, which is like plasticine when first exposed to
air and becomes concrete-hard when dry. It is difficult to work, but will
crumble and weather down eventually to a good tilth. Because it was more
fertile than drift, it was customary from Georgian times to dig out marl and
spread it on the surface. Every farm had its marlpits, the clay being used
both for its potential fertility and for making excellent bricks and tiles.
The ponds filled with rainwater and were then used to water stock.
Natural vegetation (Map
Two)
The Quarter's varying geology has affected natural growth, communications,
settlement, and occupations, all of which will be considered in later
chapters. Keuper Marl's retention of surface water favours the growth of oak
trees, which require vast quantities of moisture. Oaks tolerate thick
undergrowth of bush and bramble. Except when climatic conditions were
arctic, or hotter and drier than now, the natural cover of our region was
oak forest, so dense as to be largely impenetrable. On permeable drift,
tree-cover was less thick, dwindling to bush and shrub and grass on the
driest and stoniest patches. The marshes of the deep-silted valleys were
reedy and tussocky, with groves of willow and alder at their edges. About
the Cole-Spark confluence the bogs were 200 yards wide.
Thus the Quarter had a variety of vegetation types. The infertile highest
levels, across which go the Stratford and Yardley Wood Roads, had patchy
woodland, birch, hazel, and gorsy heath. The west and east plateaux were
separated by boggy valleys whose rounded sides were clad in great oaks and
thick underbrush.
The nature of the soil and its vegetation need not be deduced from geology
alone: surviving topographical names, notably on the 1843 Tithe Map of
Yardley, provide a description of both (Map 4). South of the Rea lay ancient
Arden, perhaps derived from Celtic words meaning 'steep woodland'. This is
an apt name for the southern edges of the Midland Plateau, though not for
the wide levels around here. Arden was never a forest in the legal sense,
had no definite boundaries, and contained all the varieties of vegetation
found in Swanshurst Quarter. There are several local names which indicate
silvan scenery. 'Yardley Wood' was formerly all of the manor south of the
Stockfield/Acocks Green Field system, contiguous with the woods of Solihull
and Kings Norton, which shrank in size and changed in character until as
'Yardley Wood Common' it was a bare common pasture in the far south. Within
the Wood other names appeared, notably Swanshurst (first ref. 1221). The -hurst
ending means a small wood, but the fact of its use for pasturage in the 13th
century suggests, as does geology, that this was no deciduous jungle but
open woodland: doubtless after some centuries of use there would have been
partial clearance too. In AD 972 a 'tall oak' was one of the boundary marks
on Yardley's west side. Oaklands (Farm) on a tongue of marl by Primrose
Brook, Woodlands Farm, Grove Farm, Oaks Fallow on the Shirley Brook, the
Grove off Baldwins Lane, Wood Meadows at Showell Green and west of the
Dingle, are names indicative of former cover if not that of the 19th
century when they were recorded. By that time only small copses survived -
or had been allowed to regenerate as coverts for game - such as Little Wood
east of Baldwin's Lane/Scribers Lane, Woods west of Coldbath Pool and Wood
Piece on Newey Goodman's playing field. The -ley ending of Bulley, Billesley,
and Shirley, was given to settlements in forest clearings, natural ones
which were extended during many generations. Riddings were areas so cleared:
there were some at Billesley.
Evidences of drift are plentiful in local names. Greet is Old English 'greot',
grit or gravel and the name was once applicable from the Coventry Road to
Billesley Lane. Greet Hall lay just north of the Warwick Road and gave its
name to a Quarter. The crossing of the Cole by both the Stratford and
Warwick Roads was called Greet Ford. The latter was first with Greet Bridge,
but the former had Greet Mill beside it. Greet Common and Greethurst lay to
the west thereof. One of Greet Manor's fields, east of the Stratford Road,
was Gravel Field on Gravelly Hill. On Heyne (High) Field, now Sparkhill
Park, were Hazel Dell and Birch Leys, indicating the natural varieties of
tree found on dry drift. Stoney Lane was well-named: it could run so close
to the Spark Brook because it had a firm gravel foundation. Gravel pits were
dug beside Billesley Lane and Wake Green Road. There were sandpits below
Swanshurst Farm and off Brook Lane, while Sandy Hill, Coney Green, and
Coningtree Croft describes the dry sandy slopes in which rabbits (connies)
made their burrows.
Because land-drainage was not completed until this century, many names
testifying to poorly-drained land have survived. The 'laundes' on the
boundary (see below) and the 'slades' were boggy valleys bordered by trees,
as were the 'mores' or 'moors' beside every brook. The original -holm ending
of Sarehole, which name was applicable from the Dingle to Green Road ford,
meant 'flood-meadow'. The mire of Puggemire Farm was due to the Chinn
Valley's clay-bordered silt. After the Pugges had gone, the name became
still more expressive as Quagmire.
Relief and drainage
(Map Three)
The lie of the land reflects a gentle tilt of the marl strata from
south-west to north-east. In the Quarter the highest point is at 500 feet
north of St. Agnes' Church, and the lowest at Greet Bridge on the Stratford
Road (370 feet). Looking from the top corner of Swanshurst Park (475 feet)
across the Cole Valley, the flatness of the plateau across which the
Stratford Road winds is clear to see. A drive along the western perimeter
roads of the Quarter shows that side to be equally level, save where it is
hollowed by water-courses. On this northward extension of the Solihull
Plateau relief has been created by downcutting of streams into the soft
clay. At the end of the most recent glaciation, the vastly swollen Cole
gouged deeply into the marl, and its tributaries followed suit: ten thousand
years of rain, snow, and wind have bevelled the gorges' sides to create the
gentle undulations below plateau level that we see today.
The Cole is about 25 miles long, from a spring source near Weatheroak almost
on the Midland watershed, to its confluence with the Blythe near to
Coleshill. Twice the river changes its mind about its destination, at Birch
Acre and Stechford, but in the Quarter it flows south to north as it
probably always did, falling about forty feet in two miles. The principal
tributary (Chinn Brook) rises only twenty yards from the Cole, but the
streams diverge at once and the Chinn flows north-east to Trittiford where
it rejoins the Cole after 4.5 miles. The present confluence is not the
original (see Watermills below), being now a quarter-mile downstream.
Other tributary streams in the Quarter are short and insignificant now.
Three of them (the Spark, Yardley Wood and Shirley Brooks) define not only
the manor but also the county boundary (see below, Boundaries). In what
follows the original source of each stream is given. The Yardley Wood Brook,
one mile long, had formerly two sources. The southern rill was the manor and
shire boundary which continued along the conjoined brook, now the city
boundary, from Highters Heath to the Cole: open from the Stratford Canal
eastward, it is dammed to form a fishpond at Priory Road, and is channelled
between modern houses both sides of the border. The Shirley Brook (from
shire-ley, the clearing on the shire boundary) rises on Sandy Hill near the
Stratford Road and flows one mile south-west to the Cole. It too fed a mill.
The last thirty yards are culverted beneath the railway embankment. The
boundary leaves the brook a quarter-mile south of the source.
Going north, the next stream flowing west is the ‘Primrose Brook’, a
convenient location name, which rises in Primrose Lane and enters the river
half a mile below, opposite Trittiford Mill Pool. The Haunch Brook (one
mile) rises near Wheelers Lane and flows south-south-east, crossing
Hollybank Road and the foot of Billesley Common, entering the Chinn Brook in
Cocks Moor Woods. For much of its length it defines the boundary with Kings
Norton. The Billesley Brook (half a mile) is now wholly culverted. It
formerly rose at the Common's north-west corner and flowed east, down the
line of Dene Hollow, and into the Cole at the start of Sarehole Mill's
headrace. The Swanshurst Brook (three-quarters of a mile) rose near the top
of Brook Lane: it is culverted from its source to Swanshurst Pool, which it
formerly fed. Descending through the miniature golf course, it is now
culverted beneath (new) Wake Green Road beside the remains of Sarehole Farm.
From 1768 until 1935 it flowed into Sarehole's headrace at that point.
The ‘Robin Hood
Brook’ rises near Highfield Road and flows half a mile north-west to join
the Cole just below the former ford opposite Sarehole Farm. It is culverted
throughout. The Coldbath or Bulley Brook (one and a half miles long), rises
near the top of Cambridge Road (Kings Heath) and flows easterly across the
Quarter, is joined by two rills on Moseley Golf Course, and enters the Cole
at Green Road ford, having been diverted at Sarehole Mill. It is open from
Billesley Lane to Coldbath dam: from there it is part of a new sewer, but
its lower course still supplies Sarehole Mill Pool. The Springfield Brook
formerly rose on the Yardley Pool Allotments. Its spring (now dry) may have
been the holy well referred to below. The brook fed Greet Mill Pool. The
Showell Green Brook (one and a half miles) rose near the manor boundary on
Billesley Lane, at what may have been Bull Spring, and met another rill at
the Yardley Wood/Wake Green Roads crossing. It still flows above ground
beside Sparkhill Park, leaving the Quarter at the Stratford Road. A rill
from Hazel Dell formerly joined it in the Park. The Spark Brook is nowhere
to be seen in the Quarter. Described as a 'torrent' in 1511, it can rarely
have been more than a trickle. Rising near Phipson Road, it flowed north to
the Stratford Road and east to the Cole. By 1896 it had become a stagnant
rubbish repository. It was then culverted, Stoney Lane being widened over it
to take tramlines. The millpools and fishponds on these watercourses will be
described in Watermills and Georgian Times below.
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
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