Left: Yardley recorded as Gerlei in the Domesday Book.

Image from the Open Domesday website reusable under a Creative Commons licence. 

Well worth a visit - Yardley Church

The substantial medieval church of St Edburgha retains much of its early appearance and has Grade I Listed status. Documentary evidence dates a church here to 1165, but the oldest visible part of the building is the early 13th-century south doorway and the south wall of the chancel. This is poorer quality masonry than the later church and may well be built of local stone; there was an exposed outcrop of red sandstone at Glebe Farm in the north of the parish.

Perhaps in part because of the deterioration of the stone, much of the church was rebuilt and extended in decorated gothic style sometime after 1300. Later in the 14th century the high chancel arch was built when the chancel itself was extended; the north and south transepts were added at the same time. Such projects have always been expensive and there must have been considerable local wealth and commitment to carry out these undertakings.

The embattled west tower with its large sandstone blocks and crocketted spire was built by the master mason, Henry Ulm in the 15th century. (Ulm is known to have completed work on Sheldon's tower in 1461.) The carved oak porch is contemporary with the tower, as is the north aisle which was also added at this time.

On the plinth of the tower wall about a metre above ground level numbers of vertical grooves may be seen in the sandstone coping stones. It is said that  they were made by the sharpening of arrows. From the time of King Edward IV every township was required by law to set up archery targets which were known as butts. To guard against the threat of a French invasion archery practice was compulsory on Sundays and on feast days for all men aged between 16 and 60. This statute continued technically in force until the 17th century. While this may be the case, they may also have been made by people sharpening domestic and agricultural blades. (Similar marks can be seen on the tower at Middleton church.)

Click to enlarge the images below.

Set in the north wall is a Tudor doorway above which are carved a Tudor rose and a pomegranate. That fruit was the personal symbol of Catherine of Aragon who in 1501 married Henry VII's oldest son, Prince Arthur. After his death she married Henry VIII with well-known consequences for the English Church and the royal succession. Among many other properties, Catherine was granted the manor of Yardley in 1533 as part of the divorce settlement. After the former queen's death in 1536 Yardley reverted to the Crown.

The chancel was lengthened again in 1890, the north-east vestry added and the south transept partly rebuilt. In 1926 a new roof was built supported now by steel girders but with the ancient beams bolted beneath them. New stone courses were set on the top of the aisle walls with corbels bearing the two oldest spellings of Yardley, as well as royal, diocesan and family arms, the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon and the Tudor rose.

Inside the church stands the wooden panelled pulpit of 1627. Contrary to medieval tradition and modern practice, this was installed in front of the altar at a time when the focus of Anglican services moved towards expounding the word of God and away from the ritual of the mass. By the middle of the 19th century, an appreciation of the orginal medieval arrangement had come back into vogue.

However, the Birmingham artist, A E Everitt who visited Yardley in 1874 found these 17th- and 18th-century elements 'quaint and picturesque.' In the chancel were the 17th-century altar rail and communion table, heraldic devices and funerary monuments, a flat ceiling and a marble font which, 'although ecclesiastically out of place, yet aid the general effect of the whole.' Clearly his views held no sway, as the chancel was shortly afterwards cleared and the church put back to its traditional arrangement, as it now appears.

In the tower arch is the tomb of Thomas Est and his wife d.1462 and in the chancel a brass memorial of Isabel Wheler who died in 1598. Also in the chancel an elaborate monument of Rev Dr Henry Greswolde d.1700 shows the priest and his wife at prayer within a curtained cave; medallions of their eleven children frame the recess. A marble vase by Peter Hollins again in the chancel commemorates Edmund Greswolde d.1863. In the south transept is a relief bust of Edward Est of Hay Hall who died in 1703, while Job Marston of Hall Green d.1701 is commemorated with a black tablet surrounded by cherubs on the north side of the chancel arch. Set in the west window in 1892 is a stained-glass depiction of the Last Supper by the noted Birmingham firm of Hardman's.

From at least 1552 there were two bells at Yardley; in 1638 Hugh Watts of Leicester hung three bells here, no doubt reusing the existing bell metal. Another bell cast by John Martin of Worcester was added in 1653 and by 1691 William Bagly had added a fifth. The bells were rehung in 1892 by Henry Bisseker of Birmingham and only ten years later new bearings and a sixth bell were supplied by the Birmingham bellfounder, James Barwell. In common with many Birmingham bells, all were recast and scientifically tuned by Taylor's of Loughborough in 1950. Two new trebles were added and the peal hung in a new frame. Yardley is one of Birmingham's premier peals.

The church is surrounded by a graveyard which was certainly in use from the Middle Ages and which was extended to the north in 1833. 

Well worth a visit: Yardley Conservation Area.

 
Set up to protect the old village with the church at its centre, the Conservation Area encompasses properties in Church Road, Church Terrace, Queens Road, School Lane and was one of the city's second batch of conservation areas in 1969.

Yardley Old Grammar School

Within the churchyard itself stands Yardley Old Grammar School. Built in the 15th-century as the church house, it was rebuilt in 1512 as a two-storey timber-framed building, and is now Grade II* listed. Its use as a school is first mentioned in a deed of 1575. In 1766 it was recorded that the Yardley Trust were to pay for a schoolmaster who was to be unmarried, given a rent-free house and who would teach the children of Yardley at no cost to their families.

In 1819 there were nearly eighty children attending during the winter months, but the figure was halved in summer when children were needed for farmwork. However, the master began to refuse children who could not read and girls who did not pay their fees. Subsequently the school was run for boys only. By 1846 69 boys were being taught in a single classroom.

The building was enlarged in 1894 and by 1904 there were two schoolrooms and two classrooms, one on each floor. However, the building was condemned by the Board of Education in 1908 and closed the following year when it was replaced by Church Road Council School. Nos. 422-424 to the rear of the school were the schoolmaster's house of late 19th century. Although Yardley churchyard was largely cleared of upright gravestones in 1959, one that still remains in the south-east corner is that of the schoolmaster, James Chell.

The former Sunday school of 1832 stands north of the church at the corner of Church Road and School Lane. This is now the parish hall and is a Grade II Listed building. It took over the role of the Yardley Vicarage School which had opened in 1828 supported by the vicar and his friends; in 1833 there were 18 boys and 45 girls on roll.

The vicarage itself used to stand on the corner of Church Road and Vicarage Road, but was demolished in 2001. Sheltered housing has now been built here by the Yardley great trust. By 1845 the day school had transferred to the Sunday school building and a teacher's house was built adjoining. While boys attended the Old Grammar School, this school was used for girls and infants. Annual government grants were received from 1872. This school also closed in 1908 and these children also transferred to the new council school on Church Road.

South of the church, on Church Road stands a former Carmelite Monastery, a complex of buildings once secluded behind high walls and now a Grade II Listed building. Although largely mid-19th-century in appearance, it has a 17th-century timber-framed building as its origin. Formerly a private mansion known as The Grange and home of the wealthy Hoskins family, it became a nunnery in 1937 and was converted to its present use as private housing in the 1990s.

Yardley village was at the heart of a farming community until the early 19th century and the buildings around the church reflect this. No. 451 Church Road, Church Farm is probably the best complex of surviving farm buildings in urban Birmingham. The farm was built in 1837 on a much older farm site.

Given to the Yardley Charity Trust by local tilemaker Robert Robyns, the present buildings are Victorian: the cowhouse was built c1820 around the timber frame of an earlier building, the barn with its high central doorway dates from 1848 and has evidence of the threshing floor; and the wagon house dates from 1853. The stable was built re-using a pair of medieval crucks, probably from the former farm buildings, and includes a pigeon loft.

The Smithy is still in use as such, though most work is now carried out in a late-20th-century building. All the outbuildings were restored in 1979.

No.433 Church Road, the Cottagers Institute is dated on the gable 1882. It was set up by Ebenezer Hoskins of The Grange to teach gardening and industrial skills to local people. Penny Cottage was built in 1826 by the Yardley Charity Trust for the local blacksmith, John Leake and was restored c1980. Most of the other houses here are early 19th-century: Nos. 437-443, built in 1895, are brick-built houses which replaced six early 19th-century cottages which had in turn replaced an earlier farmhouse.

Behind the 1890s terraced row two more rows are crammed into Church Terrace. At the corner is the tiny former post office. A white-washed dormered cottage, formerly a malthouse, is originally of Stuart construction, but it is now altered and made into two dwellings. Damson Cottage of Georgian origin, is embedded into the back of the old malthouse.

Yardley Almhouses built beside the Yardley Trust School c1800 were demolished when Old Yardley Park was laid out in 1898 and new almshouses were built in 1904 near School Lane. Also in School Lane is Holly Croft which dates from 1786 and Meriden House dating from c1880. The part of Church Road closest to the church was pedestrianised to very good effect some thirty years ago.

Deriving from Old English gyrd leah, the name of Yardley, which is not unique to Birmingham, is first documented in 972 AD as Gyrdleahe. A leah was 'a clearing' or 'a farm settlement in a clearing in a woodland area'. Although gyrd may mean a 'stick' or 'twig', it also has the meaning of 'yard' as a measure of area: at one time a yard was defined as a quarter of an acre. Yardley's name may thus be translated as 'yard clearing', the implication probably being that this was a small clearing. The 10th-century manor was, on the other hand, quite extensive.

Largely underlain by heavy clay, a soil difficult to work with early ploughs, the original settlement and a number of subsidiary settlements in the manor such as Lea Village, Tenchley and Tyseley, were set up to farm patches of lighter glacial drift. Medieval ridge and furrow is still visible on the parkland behind Yardley church and may represent the site of the original clearing. The clay lands were later worked as the designs of ploughs improved, but cultivation was never easy. If a single horse could plough a field on lighter soil, it took four horses to do the same in Yardley.

Click to enlarge the images in the Yardley Gallery below.

Close to the ridge and furrow behind the church in Old Yardley Park is a is a medieval earthwork known as Rents Moat. Beside the churchyard wall can be seen a tree-covered rectangle, the site of the moated manor house, and on the side furthest from the church a bank can still be seen among the trees.

As the straight northerly line of Church Road doglegs to the west at Barrows Lane, it has been suggested that a straight road originally led directly to this manor house site, which may therefore pre-date the church. If this is the case, the site must have been occupied when the first chapel was built in 1165 during the tenancy of the Beauchamp family of Elmley. However, this was only one of many Beauchamp manors held by the family for some 300 years. The family are thought to have rarely lived here and the hall was very likely sublet.

The de Limesi family were resident during the 13th century, at the time when the present church building was begun. They are the likely sponsors of the work. About 1700 the Allestree family, then occupants of Rents Moat, moved to Witton Hall, and this hall was subsequently demolished. The silted but still water-filled moat was infilled for safety reasons in 1900 when the Yardley Great Trust gave land between Church Road and Queens Road for public access as Old Yardley Park.

Wash Mill

An important focus of this rural community for over 600 years was the manorial mill. Standing on the River Cole on a site opposite Mintern Road, it was known as Wash Mill, a name which derives from the Old English gewaesc ie. 'ground that gets washed over by water.' Not only the floodplain but the mill itself may have been subject to flooding in winter. It was also called Wodenmill ie. Wood Mill, which probably refers to a significant extent of surviving woodland nearby.

In 1385 Richard Bradewell was the tenant. He it was who restored the timbered mill in return for a lowered rent; the buildings had probably suffered flood damage. A triangular millpool covering over a hectare was fed by a half-mile leat from the River Cole upstream and took in two small streams from Red Hill near the Coventry Road.

By 1525 the mill was again in decay, although its pool was still rented out for its fishing rights. About 1750 Yardley Mill was rebuilt in brick with new farm buildings alongside and it continued to grind corn on its twin wheels until 1914. Both the mill and the farm were demolished in the late 1920s when the area was to be developed for municipal housing. After World War 2 the drained pool was infilled with rubble from city centre bomb sites. The pool site was levelled in 1957 and was subsequently built over with the houses of Kestrel Avenue.