Two decades - 1919 to 1939
Between 1911 and the start of the Second World War, the population
of the former Yardley almost trebled, to about 173,000. The percentage
increase was slightly lower than in the first decade of the century,
but the changes in the landscape were greater than all previous
development put together. The causes of this were public and private
building, at lesser densities, improvement of communications and
amenities, and the growth of industry. The Development Plans from
1909 for specified divisions of land use have produced clearly
defined areas which may be conveniently summarised under headings
below. By way of introduction, it may be noted that demolition
and replacement, already observed in the previous period, were
to be so drastic between the wars as to destroy all but one of
the ancient hamlets. Greet Manor Farm was replaced by a large
public house, and a block of shops and flats were built on the
site of some 17th century houses opposite, so that with road widening
even the plan of the old settlement disappeared. At Stechford
the smithy and other buildings were razed, the roads were widened,
and only the inn was rebuilt. At Tyseley, on Sparkhill and about
the rebuilt Yew Tree, no buildings earlier than the 1860s survive.
Without map evidence, it would be impossible now to trace the
history of settlement in Yardley.
COUNCIL HOUSING
Between 1920 and 1939, 17,071 council houses were built in
the former Rural District, occupying nearly 2,000 acres. There
were two major building periods, separated by the slump. The first
terraces of non-parlour houses, designed to look like a single
mansion with huge gables and mansard rooves on projecting wings,
were built on Lyttleton Road and Fox Hollies Road in 1920. The
first estate, its streets named After World War One battles, covered
a quadrilateral site off Brook Lane and Yardley Wood Road, in
1923. The next year, Broadyates Estate was built at South Yardley.
Thereafter the major areas of the 1920s were Billesley, Yardley
Wood, Waterloo Farm, Fast Pits, Hobmoor, Tyseley, Shaftmoor, Fox
Hollies - Pool Farm, Stockfield, Manor Farm, Pitmaston, The Avenue,
Manor Road: and from 1933, Riddings - Glebe Farm, Hilderstone,
Ivyhouse Farm, and Lea Hall - which was not complete when further
building stopped in 1939. As estates of the same period are similar,
it will be sufficient to describe two, representative of the earlier
and later developments.
Billesley estate was built in 1924-5, a triangle about the
site of Billesley Farm, bordered by Yardley Wood Road, Chinn Brook
and Trittiford {sic) Roads, the last two being newly made. The
non-parlour cottage-type dwellings, in brick and tile and sometimes
pebble-dash, are in pairs and fours, with many external variations
between blocks which do not alter the basic form. On the main
road and elsewhere are blocks designed to look like large traditional
buildings, reminiscent of the 1920 rows.
There is no centre to the estate, and the few shops are on
its edges. Across Chinn Brook Recreation Ground is an extension,
the Yardley Wood estate, under construction in 1926. North of
the shops, public house and schools (1893, 1929, 1936) on School
Road, which bisects the estate, the houses are like those of Billesley;
those to the south (1927-8) show rather more variation, though
the accommodation and plan are still the same. Blocks are of 2,
4, and 6 dwellings. There are three small shopping areas on the
periphery. Although Yardley Wood has a focus in Christ Church,
this is close beside the narrow High Bridge over the Stratford
Canal, and perhaps for this reason no attempt was made to create
a centre thereabouts. Every house has front and back gardens,
which due to the complex street-plan are often of very odd shapes.
Trees and grass verges line the streets, and there are 'greens'
for play, additional to the lavish provision of open spaces around
the estates. In anticipation of dual carriageways, building lines
on Priory and School Roads were set well back. Development at
12 houses to the acre was of low density compared with either
1914 or the 1960s.
The Riddings Estate was begun in 1933, north of Audley Road
and bounded by Wyndhurst Road. The houses are of brown brick,
in blocks of 2, 3, 4, or 6. There are shops only at the west and
east ends of the estate, the latter being Glebe Farm Road (close
to the site of the farm), where some attempt has been made to
create a 'village green'. Glebe Farm Estate, which also occupies
Church End Farm land, is fitted between the old lanes. Though
hampered by the need to parallel the railway on both sides, the
planners were able to indulge their fondness for arcs and circles
in laying out the streets: these, while producing varied aspects
and odd-shaped gardens, have created certain foci - Middle Roundhay,
Rollington Crescent, Whittington Oval - but those are used only
as greens. A large recreation ground has been provided in a loop
of the Cole, but until recent years more use has been made of
undeveloped land on the other borders of the estate. Lea Hall
was under construction when war broke out: the shopping and other
facilities there and at Glebe Farm remained inadequate for more
than a decade.
PRIVATE HOUSING
During the 1920s and 1930s houses built for rent or sold by
private firms in the southern Quarters spread south from Formans
Road to the boundary in a widening arc between Stratford Road
and the river. East of the main road a small wedge was completed
between Shaftmoor Lane and Cateswell Road, and a much larger one
(some of which can fairly claim to be in Hall Green, a name since
appropriated by the whole area herein described), bounded on the
north by the Greyhound Track, Shirley Road, and Oaklands playing
fields, and on the east by Pitmaston council estate. 'Hall Green',
so-called, includes about 90 streets from cul-de-sacs to main
roads, and of those only 15 are ancient lanes. Hall Green developed
as wholly residential except for the Robin Hood Works, two factories
on Sarehole Road and one on Webb Lane. The northernmost and earliest
streets, on Greetmill Hill Farm land, show the transition from
terrace to 'semi'. Quite simple houses thereon, not so different
from council houses of the period, were followed elsewhere by
Decorated and Jazz Modern detacheds, semis and bungalows, in the
later 1920s and early 1930s. Every possible permutation of stucco,
pebble-dash, shingle, and fake half-timber; of gables, dormers,
porches, bays, and docorative woodwork; of odd-shaped windows
and doors - was employed to make similar buildings look different
from their immediate neighbours or the next street. In the 1930s
garages were added to existing houses where space permitted, and
were standard features of new ones, incorporated in the structure
of the latest pre-war houses which were returning to brick simplicity.
Long front gardens, grass verges and trees lined the straight
or faintly-curved streets, which often included quite large areas
of land: some of these were used as private sports grounds and
nurseries. The making of these estates involved the demolition
of many farms and cottages, including Shaftmoor, Hall Green Hall,
Oldhouse, Hillclose, Scribers', and Barton's Lodge, though others
survived until recent years as garages or dwellings only. The
Taylor land was covered by the extensions of Sarehole and Southam
Roads, and Petersfield and Burnaston Roads. Shortly before the
war two small estates were developed off Swanshurst Lane (itself
built up with large houses in the 1920s, the farm having been
razed in 1917) and Brook Lane: the latter, 'Brook End Estate',
tucked in between Billesley and the river, was not completed until
1957. Other very small areas of private development in the southern
Quarters were the completed Showell Green estate, and three short
streets off Priory Road, both in the 1920s, the 'Lands' roads
off Billesley Lane, Goodrest Croft, Yardley Wood Road, Prince
of Wales Lane, Bradnock Close, Wheelers Lane and Barn Lanes, Phipson
Road, and Hangleton Drive off Golden Hillock Road. Wake Green,
Hayfield, Woodlands and McKenzie Roads, the top of College Road,
and the streets about St. Agnes' Church were completed with modern
mansions.
In the 1930s Warwick Road was lined with detached houses from
Stockfield Road to Flint Green. Infilling at Acocks Green included
Hazelwood, Westley and Victoria Roads. Cottesbrooke was demolished,
and the street named after it was built up with a temporary school
and semis. From the re-named Grand Union Canal northwards to Broadstone
Road beyond Yardley village, a narrow strip of more than two miles
between the east bound of Yardley and Woodcock Lane/ Clay Lane/
Yew Tree Lane/ Church Road/ Queens Road, was built up during the
period but mostly in the 1930s with private estates similar to
those already described: they included 50 streets, 40 of them
new. North of Coventry Road, the addition of Sheldon to Birmingham
in 1931 caused new streets to be laid out without regard to the
ancient boundary; only Elmcroft Road, paralleling the boundary
ditch, Bilton Grange Road, and Charlbury Crescent filling the
angle where two brooks met, and Vibart and Farnol Roads which
stop short of the boundary, still mark it on the ground. A more
open area of private housing from just south of the Yew Tree extends
between Church and Clements Roads to Stechford and Audley Road:
it is chiefly a development of old lanes, with only 10 new short
streets, leaving large open spaces for sports grounds, etc. Groups
and axes are the Rockingham Estate, Stoney Lane, Vicarage Road,
Church Road (north end), Yardley Fields Road (mostly bungalows),
Inglefield, Flaxley, and Old Farm Roads, and the west ends of
Audley and Wyndhurst Roads. There are rather more large detached
houses, especially near Yardley village, but humbler semis abound.
There are a dozen rows of these south of Stechford.
AMENITIES
The chief shopping axis was Stratford Road: the separate centres,
Spark Brook to Sparkhill, Springfield, Hall Green, Robin Hood,
developed in that order as the estates spread southwards. They
continued to extend by conversions and new building towards each
other. It should be noted that the centres were catering for local
needs: branches of city banks, clothes and grocery stores, Co-ops
and Woolworths, were the only additions to rows of mostly small
private shops. Old centres which expanded were Greet, Tyseley,
Acocks Green, Hay Mills, the Swan: and new ones appeared at the
Yew Tree, Warstock, Fox Hollies, Glebe Farm and Lea Hall. These
were supplemented by small rows and corner shops in every district.
Garages and filling stations, some at old farms, grew steadily
in number. Of Yardley's smithies two buildings survived in other
uses.
Most Victorian and earlier inns were rebuilt - e.g. the Lea
Tavern, Yew Tree, Red Hill Tavern, Dolphin, Dog & Partridge,
Swan: and new ones were erected like the Hob Moor Hotel, the Fox
Hollies, the Haven, and the Good Companions. All were palatial,
in would-be traditional or jazz-modern styles, and had reception
and ball rooms. Cinemas were a new feature: ultimately there were
nine in Yardley, all on main roads, though five others were close
to its borders. None were in council estates, whose amenities
were generally peripheral (and inadequate, especially in the north).
An exception was Yardley Wood Library: two others were added to
Sparkhill Library (the converted Council House): namely Acocks
Green and South Yardley. Public Baths were opened on Sparkhill
in 1931. By the outbreak of war there were perhaps 50 schools
of all kinds, new and enlarged, including private ones and several
church schools, two Grammar Schools (the latest Moseley 1923,
in the former College), and one Commercial School (Sparkhill Institute
site, 1929). There were about the same number of places of worship
of all denominations, most of which had church halls. There was
one specially-built Community Centre, at Billesley.
In 1911 Yardley had had parks and recreation grounds at Sparkhill,
Formans Road, Fox Green, Hay Mills, Yardley and Stechford. There
were also Yardley Poor allotments at Springfield and Yardley Wood.
To these were added after World War One Swanshurst Park (Taylor
land), Trittiford (sic) Mill Pool, The Dingle, Chinn Brook Recreation
Ground, and Billesley Common: Fox Hollies Park (Broom Hall, Sandpits
and Pool Farm land): and six recreation grounds in Church End:
Oaklands, Gilbertstone, Yardley Green, Richmond Road, Bachelors
Farm, and Glebe Farm. Schools playing fields were provided on
Yardley Wood Common where projected streets were abandoned. Wake
Green, Cole Bank, Oakhurst (Broom Hall land), Shirley Road, Reddings
Lane, and Henry Road (Oaklands). Other open spaces were Moseley
Golf Course (Bulley Hall land), Robin Hood Golf Course, the Municipal
Sports ground (partly in Sheldon), and many private grounds belonging
to sports clubs, including The Moorlands Football Club. In 1928
Sarehole Mill and Meadow were left to the City, thus adding more
of the land needed to complete the 1909 plan for a riverside walk
from Solihull Lodge to Sheldon - a plan to which subsequent development
has conformed, but which the industries of Greet and Hay Mills
obstructed: the Cole Valley is, except for those areas, open on
one or both sides, but the parts of it allocated to playing fields
and allotments were not generally accessible. There were 11 allotment
areas in Church End, 10 in Greet, 8 in Broomhall and 7 in Swanshurst
- many of them very small. Yardley Cemetery came to occupy more
than 150 acres.
Two amenities which changed the appearance of the Cole Valley
were the Tyseley Destructor Works, whose ash and clinker banks
on each side of the river and mill-race raised the level to that
of the canal embankment, so that the watercourses flow in spectacular
gorges: and Colehall Sewage Works which occupied nearly 200 acres.
COMMUNICATIONS
There were two railway developments during the period, the
provision of a Halt (or 'Platform' as the G.W.R. called these
stops with longer platforms) at Spring Road in 1919, and a concrete
station at Lea Hall in 1937. On tram routes the intention was
to lay sleeper tracks on central reservations between two carriageways,
but existing ribbon building prevented this except from Highfield
Road to the boundary on Stratford Road, and on the extension of
Bordesley Green East Stechford, both 1928. As the narrow lanes
and awkward intersections of Yardley were unsuitable for new tram
services, Corporation motor buses provided the through-transport
which the District had always lacked. The Outer Circle route (1926)
at last ended the isolation of Yardley village. A garage at Acocks
Green served the Circle and 1A routes, and another at Yardley
Wood the routes which linked the southwest estates to the Stoney
Lane tram terminus. Other services were added as needed throughout
the developing district. Trams were replaced by buses on Stratford
and Warwick Roads and by trolley buses on Coventry Road in the
1930s. The termini were then extended to the City Boundary on
the last two highways, and New Coventry Road was cut. The central
reservations on Stratford Road became grassed strips. Widening
of all throughways was planned: the major roads were to be 120
foot dual carriageways, and this work was still under way in 1939.
It necessarily involved the demolition of many old buildings,
particularly on Highfield, Fox Hollies, and Stockfield Roads.
There were many holloways to be filled in: Lea Hall Road was raised,
but part of Yardley Green Road was abandoned, and Scribers Lane
is still a trench. Parts of Wake Green Road, Brook, Robin Hood,
and Webb Lanes were left to return to nature. A notable plan to
take long-distance traffic round the bottleneck of Acocks Green
was the construction of Olton Boulevard. It was completed between
Fox Hollies and Warwick Road boundary, and a part was built between
Reddings Lane and Spring Road: but needed demolitions and the
rebuilding of the railway bridge on the latter were stopped by
the war, and the Weston Lane end was never begun. (Wartime factory
development covered the planned line). Bordesley Green East was
another new highway which stopped short, barred by a terrace on
Stuarts Road.
INDUSTRY
The Development Plan confined industry to existing or designated
areas. The largest was Hay Mills/Tyseley, bounded by Percy Road
and West Greet, Spark Brook and the Cole, Coventry Road, Waterloo
and Stockfield Roads, Tynedale Road and Olton Boulevard: except
for the housing districts already described it was devoted entirely
to industry or unused land awaiting factory extension. Extractive
industry continued at the Burbury and Waterloo brickworks, and
there was a sand and gravel works by the Grand Union Canal. From
the century-old wire-works and the small factories of Hay Mills,
the area came to include such large works as Wilmot Breeden, C.W.S.,
Rover Cars, Girlings', Reynolds Tubes (almost surrounding Hay
Hall), Bakelite, Smiths' Crisps, King Dick, Dawes Cycles, Excelsior
Motor-cycles, Permoglaze, Slumberland - and a total of more than
a hundred firms engaged in various branches of metal and plastic
production. The Serck Radiator and Brooke Tool factories filled
the gap between East and West Greet. Stechford acquired some rail-based
industry, notably the Parkinson Stove Co. and the B.C.S. Works.
At Tyseley the M.E.M Works and Lucas's were the largest of the
firms making electrical goods, using motor transport.
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