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See Map Five and 'The Boundaries of Yardley'. Boundary presentments have
survived from 1495 and 1609 to give us some interesting topographical
details. Twelve jurors of Yardley met by arrangement with a dozen from each
of the neighbouring manors, to tread out and agree upon their mutual
boundaries. The men of Aston and Yardley had the Cole and Spark Brooks as
indisputable (if shifting) boundaries. Nowadays the Spark is nowhere visible
in the Quarter, yet this trickle has in its time separated two peoples
(Angles and Saxons), two kingdoms (Mercian and Hwiccan), two sees (Lichfield
and Worcester), the shires of Warwick and Worcester, the Hundreds of
Coleshill and Pershore (later of Hemlingford and Halfshire) the manors of
Bordesley and Yardley, the parishes of Aston and Yardley, the Borough of
Birmingham and the Civil Parish of Yardley, the City and the Rural District
- and two wards, constituencies, and postal districts. Astonians and
Yardleians parted at the start of Stoney Lane, where the parishioners of
Kings Norton (from Moseley Yield, one assumes) were waiting. Southward the
party trudged beside the little Spark (which in 1511 was described as 'a
torrent'!) along a gravelly lane called Lowe Lane after a local family - but
they may have taken their name from a 'low' (burial mound) nearby, as they
were first recorded as 'de lowe' in 1327. The jurors left the brook a little
short of its source (south of Phipson Road, in what used to be called Spring
Field) at 'the gylden corner'. This may refer to the yielden corner, the
eastern extremity of Moseley (Tax) Yield in Kings Norton Manor. The 'tall
oak' of 972 perhaps stood at this corner. They turned up 'the greenway', a
tree-lined and little-used track which is now called Belle Walk, skirted the
source of the Showell Green Brook (Bull Spring?), crossing Wake Green Road,
and continued south on Billesley Lane. This is a modern misnomer, replacing
the ancient 'Bulley Lane'. Fording the Coldbath Brook the party had
Greethurst on the left. This estate, first recorded in 1221, had the status
of a sub-manor in succeeding centuries, and was held in succession by Holtes,
Grevises, and Taylors. Part of it is now Moseley Golf Course, laid out in
1904. Part of the royal manor's waste (Kings Heath, first ref. 1511) lay to
the right as Bulley was circuited: that assart had been planted very near
the border at a date unknown, but no latter than the 13th
century. When the ancient Bulley Hall was rebuilt late last century its name
was changed to Billesley Hall Farm, quite incorrectly, and soon after it
became the Golf Clubhouse.
From Yardley's westernmost point at Bulley, the twenty-four good men and
true took the tracks later called Springfield Road and Barn Lane (the latter
after an Italianate barn designed by one of the Taylor ladies), which were
at that time part of the highway from Birmingham to Alcester. The road
straight across Kings Heath was a turnpike improvement of 1801. Leaving the
highway, they went south-south-east to 'the corner of the Haunche' and 'Haunche
Ditche' (brook). No distinction was then made between natural and man-made
watercourses, nor were pools on boundary streams recorded. The Haunch Brook
still runs and trees stand beside it as when the bound-beaters squelched
through 'the slade called the launde' (the boggy dell), following it down to
the 'water of Chyne' (Chinn Brook). The boundary left that stream almost at
once, and went up the valley side (between Great and Little Mayos) to John
Pretty's house 'called Whorstocke'. This part still lies open and pleasant
on the west side of Yardley Wood Road, being the east end of Cocks Moor
Woods.
Just south of the Stratford Canal the bus garage covers the site of Pretty's
house, later called Warstock Farm, which lay just but only just, on the
Norton side, so that the front door led into Yardley. The Whorstocke
(boundary post) stood at the junction of Warstock Road and Lane. From there
the boundary and its perambulators went in a straight line, a negotiated
boundary half a mile south-south-east to 'a cross on Highters Heath'. The
school named after the district straddles the boundary: an oak-lined path to
its rear entrance is the perambulation track, which has been obliterated by
modern streets from there. Both manors were taken into Greater Birmingham in
1912, so that their boundaries then ceased to have any significance and the
buildings between the wars ignored them.
Three lordships met
at the cross, which today is the junction of Prince of Wales Lane and
Gorleston Road. There the Solihull parishioners greeted the Yardleians and
the Nortonians took their leave - having sworn on oath as to the correctness
of the 'meares'. The 'cross' may have been no more than a crossing of
tracks, as shown on the first O. S. map, but it could have been a timber
preaching cross, possibly erected in thanksgiving for the royal clemency of
1339. From earliest times the tenants of the three manors had enjoyed
inter-common rights in this patchily-wooded area: the cross was a convenient
meeting-place for the settlement of disputes and the exchange of strayed
beasts. Close nearby the Yardley Wood Brook rose: the boundary followed it
down the 'gullet' which separated the manors' woods (and the shires), and
through another 'launde' towards Bach Mill. Modern housing and the Stratford
Canal have obliterated the upper reaches of the brook and its tributaries,
but it appears east of the embankment and runs through open land, a vestige
of Yardley Wood Common to the north now threatened by development, to the
Priory Mill Pool, thence down the mill's head and tailraces to the Cole.
When the tailrace was lengthened northward, probably in the early 19th
century, the boundary went with it. The medieval priory, a small building
south of the pool, was in Solihull Lodge. East from the Cole the Shirley
Brook was ascended, with Finchalls, Radmore, and Conyngre on the Yardley
side. They were well-named, after heath, a marsh, and a sandy slope
respectively. Although it was recorded in neither presentment, there was a
mill on the Shirley Brook, the bed of whose pool is still traceable today
between the gardens of Watwood and Geoffrey Roads. The brook is culverted
beneath the North Warwickshire Line embankment, but visible above. Not far
from its source on Sandy Hill the boundary left it to go due north to the
Stratford Road, 'the highway to Henley'. The brook runs between Blythford
Road and Sandy Hill/Stonor Roads. Houses block the perambulation track on
the south side of the highway, but beyond it the Bridle Path is still a
right of way. From Highters Heath to the Stratford Road the ancient shire
and manor boundary is unchanged, but now it separates the Metropolitan
Districts of Birmingham and Solihull, both in the County of West Midlands.
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 |
