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Henry Beighton's 'Mapp of Warwickshire' was surveyed in 1722-5. Yardley is
nearly islanded in his native county, so much can be learned from the
boundary features he shows. Also, the highways which cross Yardley are
drawn, with their intersections. These can be matched with known lanes, so
that if these are plotted and foredroves to known farms are added, a
conjectural map of the early Georgian manor is produced. However, as there
was probably little change in the landscape from then until early Victorian
times, the known landscape of the latter period can be considered in detail
in its place, while other 18th century topics are dealt with
here.
The Birmingham to Edgehill Turnpike Trust was established in 1725, one of
the first around here. Though the Trust was quick to set up tollgates (one
at the top of Cole Bank Road opposite the new Charity School, with a cottage
for the keeper alongside), it was less prompt in making real improvements to
the road on which tolls were being levied. Across the gravel ridge, the
highway was a rutted strip of morass as wide as the present dual carriageway
at Robin Hood by winter's end, travellers having carried out the ancient
obligation to tread out a new way beside the old when the latter was
impassable. On the slope up from Greet Mill, Green Bank in later times, the
road was a steep and narrow holloway that became a watercourse in rain.
Parishioners still had to perform their statutory labour, but the Trust now
provided surveyors/engineers. A narrow causeway was made on both approaches
to the ford, which was later paved. The holloway was eventually infilled
(probably in the 1770s when tolls were raised by a half) with hard-core, and
a cambered strip of macadam road was made, of graded and rolled layers of
broken stone, wide enough for two coaches to pass, with a ditch on each
side, down the middle of the worn way elsewhere. A causeway was also made to
cross the Spark Brook's marshy valley. More horses were drowned during Cole
floods: the first wain bridge was built by the county in Regency times.
Coaches went to Warwick and the capital along what for some decades was
called the London road, a preferred way to the shire town because the
Warwick Road was notoriously bad.
The name 'Stratford Road' came into use after the opening of the Avon
Navigation, which made the town a river port. From 1745 there were
milestones showing the distance from the capital - 114 opposite Sparkhill
Park, 113 at Cole Bank Gate. (Here 'bank' has the local meaning: it refers
to the slope up from the river, not to the riverside) By the century's end
five daily coaches sped along the improved turnpike to and from Birmingham,
keeping strict time. The Bull's Head was not a stage for the change of
horses, but a 'request' stop. Coaches did not stop at tollgates, which were
manned not by Trust employees, because they could not be trusted, but by men
who had bought at auction the right to take tolls for a year. Warned by the
guard's horn, the keeper would swing wide the gate and let the heavily-laden
coach go through at speed, catching the shilling and sixpence flung to him.
For necessary repairs there were blacksmiths' and wheelwrights' shops by the
Cole Bank Gate. Footpads infested the Turnpike. The worthy schoolmaster of
Hall Green, Samuel Swinburne, was robbed near Greet Mill in broad daylight,
and a horseman was brought down at Foremans Lane corner by a rope stretched
across the road, and one Jones a milliner was held up near The Mermaid.
These are but three of many incidents recorded in Aris's Birmingham
Gazette.
The pools of the
Quarter had all been made by 1783. On the Coldbath Brook there were four -
Coldbath itself, Lady Mill Pool, Old or Great Pool, and Sarehole Mill Pool.
Swanshurst Slade Pool (alias Grove or Moseley New Pool) had been dammed on
the next brook to the south by one Henry Giles in or before 1758. All these
were fishponds, whether serving mills or not; fish was a profitable crop,
caught in nets, as well as a source of sport. Greet Mill Pool had been made
by a weir across the river, and this was enlarged in 1775. There were the
two pools on the southern boundary which serviced Colebrook Priory (Bates or
Bach) Mill and Shirley Mill; and in 1783 the 7.5 acre pool of Titterford
Mill was dug out of the Coleside meadow, with a long dam on the river side,
and a leat from the Chinn Brook.
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 |
