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Swanshurst Quarter in 1979
The Quarter has even less unity now than it ever had, and only the need to
keep this booklet to a reasonable size justifies studying its modern state
in isolation from neighbouring districts. Development was apparently nearing
completion four decades ago, but that was by the standards of that time.
Pressure of population has - until the last few years, when economic
stagnation and birth-rate decline have changed everything - brought the
disappearance of many pieces formerly open space beneath tarmac, concrete,
and brick. Map 12 illustrates this very clearly. Nurseries, private playing
fields, tennis courts, brookside meadows, wasteland borders, mansion
grounds, and enclosed bits made accessible by the demolition of a semi or
two and filled with a cul-de-sac of 'town houses', have produced a
concentration of housing that would had horrified the generous planners of
the 1920s.
The Quarter's four cinemas have closed, the Piccadilly after a brief spell
as Dreamland, showing Indian films. The Springfield is a furniture store,
the Rialto and Robin Hood have been replaced by supermarkets. Most of the
Edwardian mansions have gone. Court Road's small fire station has closed
following the building of a big new one at the top corner of Swanshurst
Park. Hall Green's villa police station is no more. Since 1974 police, fire,
and health services, and road maintenance have been controlled by the West
Midlands County. The Webb Lane factories have been rebuilt. The Women's
Hospital is threatened with closure. Four Arches Bridge was restored in
1956, and Sarehole Mill in 1969. Warstock Allotments are overbuilt, as is
half of the Springfield tract: the rest is a 'leisure garden' (a tidied-up
allotment patch). Two Circle intersections - Stoney Lane/Walford Road and
Cole Bank/School Roads - have been straightened, and Priory Road is dual
carriageway almost to the city boundary. But elsewhere only service roads
have been made along the green swaths, and now the W. M. C. C. has decided
to abandon the dual carriageway plan of a half-century ago. Hall Green has
its library and St. Peter's Church off Highfield Road, both from the
swinging sixties.
Designated open spaces survive, and prefabs are not to be replaced on park
edges by towers as we once feared. Sarehole Mill Meadow and the play-space
by Marion Way (Foster Bequests), and the 1913 Hougham Bequest land from
Green Road ford to Stratford Road have been added to the Coleside amenity.
There is a regretted break in the walk between Brook Lane and the Mill,
because of the schools' field, but the well-beaten track parallel to Old
Wake Green Road's trees shows that the peasantry are establishing a right of
way through there. Coldbath Brook has been culverted from the Pool eastward,
and beyond the site of Lady Mill there is a great underground stormwater
reservoir. The Dell is encroached upon from both sides, by St. Bernard's
School and private cul-de-sacs. South of Scribers Lane the Coleside level
has been raised. The remaining part of Yardley Wood Common is under threat
of development.
Surviving antiquities (pre-1850) are: The Chalet in Green Road, Sarehole
Mill, Sarehole Farm outbuildings, Yew Tree Cottage and Showell Green
Cottages, Yew Tree Farm, The Firs, Moorlands, Paradise Cottages, Highfield
House, and Four Arches and Trittiford Bridges. Losses since World War II
include both Springfields, Spartans, Cateswell, Sarehole Hall, Coldbath
Farm, Showellhurst, and Trittiford House. Early council houses are being
modernised, as are many terraces. Only the oldest rows at the Quarter's
north end can be described as sub-standard dwellings. Recent immigrants -
Irish, European, West Indian, Asian - outnumber Yardleians in the terrace
streets north of the Council House - still proudly displaying its Yardley
District Council shields - and are rapidly growing in numbers in
Springfield. Sparkhill shopping centre is predominantly Asian, and many
old-established stores have closed or changed function. Springfield and Hall
Green have still flourishing shopping rows. Much of the Quarter is still a
very pleasant place to live, if increasingly dangerous for children and
pedestrians.
Short Bibliography
Charter of King Edgar 972
Domesday Book, translated
Aris’s Birmingham Gazette
Notes and Material for a History of Yardley – W.B. Bickley
Kelly’s Directories
Local press
Birmingham and its regional Setting – British Ass., 1950
Victoria County Histories of Worcestershire and Warwickshire
Transcriptions and Summaries – the Discovering Yardley Group
Medieval Yardley – V.T.H. Skipp
The Manor of
Yardley, Urbanisation of Yardley, Sparkhill and Greet, Watermills of the
Cole and Blythe Valleys – John Morris Jones
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 |
