Georgian Scene

In the year 1785 everyone was talking about 'the Association', then newly-formed. Men of substance were hastening to join it, being convinced of its worthiness. This was the Yardley Association for the Prosecution of Felons, a body which proposed to offer rewards for information about crime and criminals in the Parish. Birmingham town's nearness, general poverty and lack of police force, combined to make this district a Mecca for every sort of malefactor. Poaching, armed attacks on houses, highway robbery and murder, were common-place and rarely punishable.

Let us return to the Georgian landscape of 200 years ago ........Behind the old Bull's Head inn at Four Ways a cock-main and a bare-fist fight to a finish are surrounded by cheering and cursing mobs as brutish as any in a Hogarth print. Horses are being raced on a rough course nearby, and the hounds at Hall Green can be heard greeting those from Fox Hollies as the Hunt gathers for a draw of Yardley Wood Common.

On the narrow turnpike before the inn a troop of begrimed and tattered children orphans bound for semi-slavery in Black Country mines, shuffles aside to let pass a horseman who is the local distributor of Aris's Birmingham Gazette. A horn sounds to southward and out of the dust-cloud speeds the stagecoach from London. Distantly we can see the Cole Bank tollgate by the Charity School - at the School Road/Colebank Road crossing : alerted by the horn the keeper has swung wide the gate to let the coach through without pause.

.....stroll across the unfenced heath to Marston Chapel, which looks strangely new and small, for it lacks the transepts and apse of 1860. The Headborough, a Parish official, is tacking on the door a list bearing the names of those unfortunates who must soon report for Militia training at Worcester, unless they can afford to pay a substitute, on pain of fine or imprisonment.

By way of Chapel Lane (School Road) we return to the Turnpike. Walking north thereon we observe that the animals in roadside pastures, like the people we meet. compare ill with those of our own time in physique and condition. A huge covered wagon with foot-wide wheels is creeping up the gorge of Greet Mill Hill, its eight starved horses barely able to cope with load and slope.

Down by the river, just about to cross the humped bridge, can be seen the portly figure of that local worthy, Mr. Swinburne, the Schoolmaster. As we watch a filthy scarecrow of a man leaps from hiding and threatens him with a cudgel ! Now the ruffian is making off across Greet Common, clutching the pedagogue's purse - but observe, a gentleman on horseback has heard the cries for help and is pursuing ! A rein encircles the footpad's neck and a pistol to his head completes the capture. When last seen, victim and captor are making for the Headborough's house with the prisoner : his journey may end only at Botany Bay.