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Yardley Rural District
The Vestry became the Parish Council with other functions. In 1892
representative local government came with the first elections to the Rural
District Council. Thanks to County Councillor Joseph Malins of Wilton Road
Sparkhill the functions of the Parish and District Councils were combined.
He was the first Chairman and a great man in Yardley affairs. Sparkhill was
then the population centre of Yardley: in 1902 the Council moved from the
Institute to the new Aston-Hallish Council House, which had been built by
Worcestershire. The County, not wishing to lose Yardley, wanted to show that
it could offer as much as Birmingham. The City was hoping to woo the
Yardleians with promises of amenities such as public libraries and baths. So
the County built a police station, magistrates' court, fire station and
public works depot beside the Council House in the next few years. But all
was in vain. Yardley voters, many of them immigrants from Birmingham,
elected men committed to taking the District into the City on the best
possible terms, and in 1912 the annexation took place.
The City of Birmingham
The Council House declined from its eminence, becoming a suburban registry
and library. A huge task faced the municipality in providing the services
and amenities the Rural District Council had lacked the resources to supply,
and in improving the roads. Re-surfacing, widening, raising, re-bridging,
laying of drains, water and gas mains, installing street-lamps, and
collecting refuse, were unspectacular but essential labours. As the scores
of marl-holes were already filled with rubbish, the City continued its
former practice of dumping and burning refuse at the boundaries - around
here using part of Yardley Wood Common beside Priory Millpool. This activity
raised the level so that future building would be possible. The site is in
the news at present, being now destined to carry housing instead of the
long-deferred and recently-abandoned school.
Sparkhill Baths were not in use until 1931, and Hall Green Library was three
decades later. But an early start was made on the provision of open space.
The Rural District Council had decided in 1909 on a plan to keep the Cole
valley green. It was to be a parkway from end to end of the District, some
nine miles of meadow. This was incorporated in the Town Plans. During the
1920s the Dingle, the Chinn Valley, Trittiford Mill Pool, Swanshurst Park,
and parts of Billesley and Yardley Wood Commons were acquired and opened to
the public. School playing fields were allocated at the Dell, just above the
willow swamp that had been the bed of the Old Pool until the dam was
breached in the 1890s, Colebank in what had been Cotterell's Meadow, and -
belatedly - at Yardley Wood. There planned streets were abandoned, leaving
odd short dead-ends. The Rural District Council had received a gift of
several pieces of land from the Charity Trust, but had opened only one of
these, as Sparkhill Park (1904). This had a small pool until after World War
II.
Urbanisation
This topic is studied in detail in my ‘Urbanisation of Yardley’. The first
O. S. map shows a sprinkle of buildings stretching from Spark Green over
Sparkhill to Showell Green, along the ridgeway Highfield/Fox Hollies Roads,
along the Turnpike, 35 bordering Yardley Wood Common and twenty about the
northern edge of Billesley Common, with a dozen in the southernmost part of
the Quarter - whose total of buildings of all kinds was about a hundred. The
dwelling pattern then and for perhaps three decades more was related to a
rural economy: there were farmhouses, cottages, and a country mansion or
two. Thereafter suburban development began to make inroads into agriculture
and husbandry. It spread southward from built-up Bordesley into Spark Green
and Greet. Mansions like the Chains on Sparkhill and farms like Grove were
bought and razed by building societies, straight streets were cut across
pastures, and there was sporadic growth of villas and terraces for the
better class of artisans and minor professional people. But along the
high-hedged lanes of southern Swanshurst Quarter mansions were built among
the old large farmsteads. Wealthy folk came out from Birmingham's smoke to
the fresh air and clean fields of rural Yardley. They had their carriages
for transport to Acocks Green Station on the Oxford Line from 1852.
Urbanisation is closely linked to public transport: steam tramcars to the
Cole on the Stratford Road made possible the large-scale terrace building of
south Sparkhill and Springfield.
Between 1851 and
1901 Yardley's population increased eleven-fold. The greatest growth was
centrally in the parish, from the 1870s. Many streets were laid out but
infilled fitfully by small builders. However the end result was always that
of a practically continuous brick facade along both sides: two or
three-storey narrow tunnelbacks in red brick from Greet claypits and
imported slate with Georgian or baroque decorations. After the widening of
Stoney Lane over the Spark Brook, seven streets were completed down to it,
and a shopping street of sorts developed. South of Durham Road streets were
named after members of the Smith-Ryland family who owned the land. In 1895
the late Stuart Mermaid was replaced by a twin-towered hotel, but the old
carved inn-sign was retained, and Sparkhill Institute was opened. Four years
later Eastbourne Market opposite the Mermaid accelerated the change of the
Stratford Road to a shopping street. Villas were steadily converted to
shops, and their small front gardens became forecourts. Meanwhile in Wake
Green and Hall Green the fancy mansions were going up in large gardens. In
1905 the Women's Hospital moved from a converted villa opposite the Council
House to its present site on Showell Green Lane. Springfield's long terraces
were quickly and uniformly built and soon occupied. Hall Green Parade was
built as a shop row in 1913. When World War I began, the Green Bank Estate
of wider, lower houses - still joined in rows but otherwise the same as
post-war semi's - was near completion. Sarehole Road extended only to
Dunsmore Road. The Showell Green Estate, Sidney Road, etc. had just been
completed. A castellated chocolate factory beside Webb Lane and the new
railway had failed after a hopeful start. South of Wake Green Road/College
Road the landscape had changed little, apart from rebuildings.
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 |
