The mid-nineteenth century
In 1847 the population of Yardley was around 2,800 and declining
slightly. The 40% increase in three decades had been reflected
in the number of buildings shown on the large-scale Tithe Award
Map of that year, which was up by about half that percentage.
All enclosures were marked and numbered on the map, and from the
different sequence of numbers on former field pieces it has been
possible to delineate the old open fields after enclosure. There
was still no building upon them, and indeed parts survived as
recreation grounds until recently: Manor Road (Church Field and
Stich Meadow), Yardley Fields Road (Stichford Field - with barely
visible ridge and furrow), and Wynford Road (Stock Field). The
growth areas were Yardley village, and the Cole Hall - Pool Lane,
Spark Brook - Showell Green, and Hall Green - Titterford axes:
there was little change elsewhere.
The Mermaid, Bull's Head, Old Crown (Six Ways), and Dog &
Partridge (Priory Road) inns were named. An effect of enclosure
was the widening and improving of 19 lanes or parts thereof, about
and across the commons: they included Brook Lane, Yardley Wood
Road, Wheelers Lane/Coldbath Road/Swanshurst Lane, School and
Priory Roads, and also Yardley Road and Station Road (Stechford),
where they crossed the former open fields. The London & North-Western
Railway (1838), crossing the Cole south of Stichford, had cut
through the Church Field and Lea Hall ridges: five high brick
bridges of three arches (of which only those at Hillhouse and
Lea Hall survived electrification demolitions) carried lines over
the deep trenches, and the line was embanked over the valley of
the Yardley Brook.
The Tithe Map showed a number of large houses without names:
these, all in Church End, were later called The Oaks, Rockingham,
The Retreat, Yew Tree and Yardley Houses. Gospel House (Gospel
Farm), marked on the 1838 map, was named. Other additions were
the Rushall Lane (Stockfield Road) Congregational Chapel (1827),
and Church Schools in the village and at Yardley Wood: the latter
was held in a meeting house built a decade earlier, a year before
one in Hall Green.
Architectural styles to be seen in Yardley in the mid-19th
century may be deduced from structures which have survived into
the 20th century. The parish has no building stone (hence the
use of the church tower wall for blade-sharpening), but was heavily
wooded until Tudor times. Some old farms, e.g. Swanshurst, Grove
were still close-timbered like the Trust School: they were 15th
century, with overhung first floors. Like Hay Hall, some of these
earliest buildings were later enclosed in brick, tile rooves replaced
thatch, and external chimneys of brick were added. There were
probably few 'Jazzobethan' mansions like Blakesley Hall, wherein
wood was used decoratively as well as structurally. The usual
building in the 16th century, when timber was becoming scarce
locally, was the open frame infilled initially with wattle and
daub - the 'chequerboard' style characteristic of rural Worcestershire
today - and later with brick. Shaftmoor, Hall Green Hall, Field
Gate Farm, Stockfield and Little Sarehole Farms, Ashleigh Grange
and Vintage Cottage, were all examples of this. The 'pad and panel'
east wing of Swanshurst was a late example of close timbering.
Grove Farm's (1651) wings and Pinfold House (17th century) were
probably among the last wood-framed houses to be built in Yardley.
Hillhouse and cottages on Amington Road were 17th century brick.
The Georgian period brought additions in brick, like the west
wing of Swanshurst and the infilling of the central hall, and
the false facade of Pinfold House. New brick buildings were Tyseley
Grange and the Swan (l7th century), Titterford Mill (1783), Cateswell,
and many single and row cottages. Of these a number survive at
Showell Green and on Prince of Wales Lane, Arden and Shirley Roads,
and Paradise, and Brook Lanes. Many 18th century rebuildings or
new buildings included Greet Manor House (Manor Farm), Cole Hall,
Paradise, Coldbath, Moorlands and Church End Farms, Spartans,
Lea Hall and Broom Hall, and Glebe and Deykins Farms, and Sarehole
Mill. Among 19th century replacements were Yardley Farm, Titterford,
Quagmire, Billesley, Brook Farms and Billesley Hall Farm (Bulley
Hall). Hay Hall was refronted after 1810, Cateswell was enlarged,
The Firs on Yardley Wood Road received a new facade, the Bull's
Head (Stratford Road) was rebuilt, and the north wing of Hall
Green Hall was added. Mansions like Stockfield Hall, the rebuilt
Italianate Fox Hollies Hall, and Robin Hood House (now inn) appeared
about mid-century. At dates unknown, Shaftmoor and Hillhouse were
stucco'ed. Many farms became ivy-covered, two in Swanshurst Quarter
being known as Ivyhouse.
The 15th century structures (Hay Hall, Swanshurst, Grove Farm,
Trust School) were two-storeyed and gabled, with dormer windows.
Chimneys were external, added later. The Tudor buildings were
similar, but with open frames and elaborate chimneys. Houses of
the 17th century had brick gable ends higher than the roof tree,
and chimneys were inbuilt. All Georgian buildings were of brick
and tile, though beams were still (and later) used over wide entrances.
They were simple and well-proportioned, with flat frontages and
low rooves. Sash windows were in fashion, but casements also continued
in use. The largest buildings were of three storeys, with square
windows under the eaves. Farms comprised a group of substantial
buildings set about a yard. Labourers' families 'lived in', or
occupied terrace cottages. The plain rural Georgian style persisted
with little change into the mid-19th century. Wider, arched windows,
iron frames, barge boards, and brick porches were sometimes added,
and stucco might conceal either brick or timber. In the 1850s
debased Georgian and Gothic Revival appeared, and thereafter only
cottages carried on the old tradition. But it was never to die
wholly, as many turn of-the-century terraces show, it re-appeared
in council houses of the 1930s, and is seen again in the latest
high-density developments.
To assess correctly the development of Yardley to 1850 it would
be necessary to know its chronology and nature in fullest detail.
While the main features of the medieval manor can be deduced,
the complete pattern is not known: and later growth can be explained
in general terms only until that period is reached, after the
mid-century, of which sufficient remains on the ground or in record
to make more exact deductions possible. 1850 is an arbitrary date
of division between rural and suburban Yardley. Prior to it, development
was explicable by internal factors: but thereafter, following
a slight recession, there was a population increase of 40% in
a decade (2,753 in 1851; 3,848 in 1861), which in the absence
of major industrial activity (since no agricultural growth in
a fully enclosed parish could cause such an influx) must be ascribed
to external factors - the nearness of ever-growing Birmingham,
and the extension of travel facilities thereto and from. Yardley
had been peopled by the families of farmers, labourers and providers
of rural services, and rural craftsmen in clay, wood, leather
and metal, all of whom worked in the parish. Thenceforward an
always-increasing proportion of its inhabitants was of migrants
from Birmingham, escaping nightly from the smoke of the town which
provided their wealth or wage. The drastic changes which this
invasion wrought in the appearance and economy of Yardley will
be detailed below: but first the 1850 landscape will be explained
to the limited extent that the evidence permits.
The cluster of dwellings at the village was small because the
numbers employable and sustainable by the northern open fields
and pastures were limited, and because the site was not a good
one - on uncapped clay, with a poor water supply. The farm kilns
there and elsewhere on the arable fringes made bricks and tiles
as a winter occupation, assured of a market in Birmingham and
having the Warwick Canal near enough (when the lanes were dry)
to take away their products and bring their fuel. The absence
of farms within the now enclosed fields is probably explained
by slow and piecemeal amalgamations of holdings by farming families
well established in ancient homesteads, and the fairly even spread
of large farms elsewhere by a general colonisation of the more
favourable parts of the waste within a comparatively short period
of population growth and manorial encouragement. The many small-holdings
on the fringes of the extensive commons of the southwest were
doubtless squatter settlements where cottage industry had to supplement
inadequate income from the land: the scatter near the Yew Tree
junction, along the northern edge of what was probably the most
heavily-wooded area of the manor until Tudor times, may have had
a similar origin. Building along turnpikes and lanes might be
either the cause or the result of the thoroughfares: whether lanes
were trodden out between existing homesteads, or houses were built
along made roads for ease of travel is a matter for conjecture
in the absence of maps and dates.
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