Open fields (Maps One
and Three)
The comparative dryness of the soil on the large drift patch (covering about
200 acres) south-east of Stichford, and its relatively light tree cover
explain its use for the first communal fields. It comprised two ridges, that
between the Yardley and Stich Brooks being the higher and so sometimes
called Upper Field, and the lower that between the Stich Brook and the Cole,
called Nether Field - otherwise Church Field and Stichford Field. Later
clearances would extend to the edges of the drift - north to and beyond the
site of Hillhouse, south perhaps nearly to Blakesley, west to the line of
Albert Road, east to Church Road. A small drift patch east of Stichford was
cleared and later extended down to the valley bogside: this was The Riddings.
A second field-system was begun on drift (boulder clay) between Lea Village
(the lane so called) and the boundary, extending south across clay later.
Keuper Marl is potentially more fertile than sandy drift, and its tree-cover
was to be gradually removed over many centuries by ringing, burning, and
felling, but lack of sunshine, abundance of rain, and the heavy going for
plough team and reaper were to prevent the land being fully used for
agriculture. With a ready market for meat, hides and wool, Yardleians tended
to be husbandmen, enclosing their hard-won land for pasture. The 'great
timber' was in demand for building houses and ships, while the loppings went
into clay kilns to make charcoal for Birmingham's hungry furnaces. So the
Yardley lumberjack and charcoal burner laboured until they had created a
landscape bare of trees.
Tudor and Stuart times
Although there were large estates in church hands elsewhere in Yardley until
the Reformation, and the church was owned by Maxstoke Priory, there was only
one small estates in Church Road (bounded by the Cole, the Coventry Road,
Holders and Hobmoor Roads) and that belonged to Studley Priory. The Earls of
Stafford owned Lea Hall in the C 15th. That was later the home of the Dods.
A Perambulation Report of 1495 has come to light. It shows how much of
the border lay along 'ditches' on the east side. These could be either
natural brooks of man-made trenches. See my 'Boundaries of Yardley' for the
detail of that report, of another of 1609, and a comparison of the given
boundaries across a thousand years. The meandering border with Sheldon Park
was straightened in 1710.
The first bell of the Church's peal was installed in 1541. Later the
school had a bell hung in the west gable. Acts of 1555 and 1598 gave to
Civil Parishes the duties of maintaining highways and succouring the poor:
annually appointed Overseers were answerable to a Bench of Justices.
Manorial officials continued to serve, notably the Constable and his
assistants the Headboroughs, one or more for each Quarter. Conveniently near
the school were the combined stocks and whipping post (the former last used
in 1852), and alongside a small stone lock-up held prisoners awaiting the
Assizes at Worcester.
It is probable that most of the Quarter except the great fields was
enclosed by the end of this period. Kitts and Marlpit Greens west of Lea
Hall, and Fast Green (junction of Holder, Deakins, and Fast Pits Roads) were
small common pastures, but elsewhere hedges and ditches separated
conveniently small closes, most of which belonged to a few large farms. Even
the open fields had been nibbled at their edges. Much of the land was given
to sheep and cattle, as were the fields after harvest, and the arable was
changing to market gardening. Birmingham was increasingly the market for
Yardley produce, and it was to there that surplus population moved.
Husbandry required fewer workers than did agriculture. Rural crafts served
local needs. Ten kilns were at work in the period, five of them in Church
End. Some at least of the houses there began as tile-makers' huts. Because
clay (calling it 'marl' was incorrect) was rightly reckoned to be more
fertile than drift, it was dug out and spread on fields used for crops.
These marlpits and others beside the kilns soon filled with water and served
as fishponds and stock-watering places. There were scores of them
eventually. Fast Pits and Pool Lane are reminders.
Blakesley was probably not the only prosperous Yardleian's house to be
replaced by a larger and more comfortable one. Its stable block,
timber-framed, and its brick kitchens were added in Stuart times: the former
was encased in brick a century later.
Yardley first appears in a published map in 1576. Christopher Saxton's
shows church and village at Coleside near Stichford, and gives it a boundary
that annexes a good part of Bordesley and Little Bromwich. No other detail
is shown except for a cluster of trees to indicate forest about the borders
of Yardley, Solihull, and Kings Norton. It was probably this remnant of the
primeval forest which caused the secretary to the Bishop of Worcester,
accompanying His Grace on a tour that included Yardley, to describe the
parish as being 'secluded in a great wood'. Yardley Woods, first so named in
the 1495 Report, could evidently bear that name without confusion despite
being in the extreme south of the manor: the Church End woods were already
so reduced as to have lost the name if ever they held it. John Speed's maps
of 1610 repeat Saxton's errors, and we must wait three centuries longer
before finding an accurate and detailed map of Yardley.
There is no evidence that any of the manor's royal owners ever visited
it, nor that any Civil War engagement occurred within its borders. But there
was dissent here, Dod of Lea Hall and Est of Hay Hall having a recorded
altercation, and we may guess that parishioners were called on to billet
troops of both sides and probably pay levies to both as well. Worcestershire
was nominally for the King, and Warwickshire for Parliament, so that this
was a front line zone. The three highways across Yardley led from the
swelling town of Birmingham to the walled cities of Coventry and Warwick and
the river port of Stratford. Traffic along them in peace and war must have
been considerable. Local people were required by law to work on the roads
for six statutory days each year. They greatly resented having to repair
roads worn by travellers across the manor who brought no profit to the area.
Indeed the highways brought looting troops, poachers, footpads, and robbers
to add misery to the uncertainties of rural life.
In 1660 there is the first reference to 'the long causeway' by which the
deep-sunk church way (Church Road from the Swan) was raised above the mire.
It is recalled today in the late Victorian 'Causeway' cul-de-sac which leads
off it. Ogilby's strip-map of 1675 records 'Hemill' (Hay Mill) Bridge: as
the map was drawn for long-distance travellers by horse or coach, we may
assume that the bridge was wide and strong enough for wheeled traffic. The
first known 'Swan' inn was Stuart in date, as were inns at Stechford and Lea
Hall and the 'Ring o'Bells' in the village (Institute site), probably also
Hay Mill Tavern. There were smithies in each hamlet and on the highways. The
Limesi moat site was abandoned in about 1700, when the Allestreys moved to
Witton, and no trace of the buildings upon it survive. The lowness of the
platform argues against five centuries of continuous occupation, as its
level was usually raised at each rebuilding, in part by burying material
from earlier structures, in order to make the site dryer.
Introduction
Preface
Geology and natural vegetation, and relief and
drainage
The foundation of Yardley, and Boundaries
Old names, and old roads
Norman to medieval times, and St. Edburgha's church
Owners of Yardley
Old buildings
Open fields, and Tudor and Stuart times
The river Cole
Georgian times
The nineteenth century
Churches and schools
The twentieth century
Thirty-five years, and Principal sources
Maps |
