The Rivers Cole and Blythe.

These rivers may be considered together, since their histories are not dissimilar. Both continued to power corn mills into this century; that the Cole had some conversions to industrial use while the Blythe had none may be attributed to their respective distances from ironstone and coal workings. It was easier to produce charcoal in Arden and carry it to existing forges on the Tame and Rea, where fuel was scarce from the seventeenth century, than to move the forges. Increasing use of coal and coke, the construction of the Birmingham-Wolverhampton Canal and its branches, and the introduction of steam-power, were factors which made the development of these far-off rivers unnecessary. The coat and difficulty of moving raw materials and products by pack-horse made distances of even a few miles from sources and markets too great to be economic.

Coleshill Mill existed in 1086; Stechford and Greet Mills were recorded in 1249 and 1261. Hay, Lea, and Broom Halls were sub-manors within Yardley and two of these had its own mill. Yardley was the property of Pershore Abbey for several centuries, but that rich establishment which had five Avon mills at Domesday seems to have made no early use of its nine miles of the Cole. True, the manor had probably no more than 50 inhabitants scattered over 17.5 square miles. In 1385 the Earl of Warwick owned Yardley, and he gave Robert Bradewell timber and a site for a mill, receiving 6s 8d annual rent. This may have been Wash Mill. Sarehole Mill was mediaeval, paying annual tribute to Maxstoke Priory. In 1689 there were two watermills and a windmill in Moseley and Yardley, owned by the Grevises of Moseley Hall; one of the wheels, that of Lady Mill, had been converted for wire-drawing, and the windmill nearby probably replaced it as a grist-mill.

Wythall, a sub-manor in Kings Norton, used a mill called Wythworth, later Kilcop, and on the opposite bank Forshaw, a sub-manor of Solihull, had a mill which went out of use with the abandonment of the manor-house site. Other Solihull mills were those of Peterbrook and Colebrook Priory; though both reverted to corn-grinding in their last years, the former may have powered a small forge, and the latter was a needle mill. The brick tower windmill nearby, built in 1644, may have been a replacement. Stechford and Babbs Mill were manorial; the former was making paper before going out of use in about 1830, but the latter ground corn until 1914. Sheldon's other mills, on Cole tributaries, were out of use by 1840, but a windmill remained at work for some years, and at Olton End a water and windmill were working during this century.

Matthew Boulton's father retired to Sarehole in 1759. It was then called Little Mill and though close to the Cole received water only from the Coldbath Brook descending from Lady Mill. One wonders whether the younger Matthew, riding out from Snow Hill, ever considered developing Sarehole as he was shortly to develop Soho. At the latter the pool was already made when he leased the estate, and both materials and labour were to hand. Sarehole was too far away. It was left to Richard Eaves to rebuild it, supply it from the Cole by a half-mile leat, and install two Smeaton breast-wheels. They are 12 feet in diameter, one being 6 feet wide and the other 4 feet 6 inches. (The wheel at Colebrook Priory, rebuilt at about the same time, was like these; in power it was perhaps comparable with the overshot wheel at Edgbaston, 7 feet 6 inches diameter, 8 feet width.) Sarehole was rebuilt to grind corn, as was Greet Mill, another Eaves venture in 1775. This was built across the river, taking advantage of a sudden break of slope to obtain a fair head behind its weir. Titterford seems to have been a completely new construction, being advertised in 1783 as 'a new water corn mill, two waterwheels, four pairs of stones, and....garners(for)....2,00 bags of wheat'. Clearly the capital outlay for these mills, especially Titterford where a pool of nearly eight acres had to be banked high above the Cole alongside, would not have been incurred without expectation of profit; due to conversions and lack of power in and near Birmingham, where population was growing rapidly, there was probably a shortage of grist-mills, and it was sound economics to make better use of the Cole.

Yet by the end of the eighteenth century Sarehole was wire-drawing, possibly in addition to grinding, and later it was producing edge tools and gun barrels; the Stratford Canal could have brought materials to within 1.5 miles of the mill. Greet was little farther away from that or the Warwick Canal, and so could obtain supplies for the steel-rolling to which it converted. However, Greet was out of use by 1850 : one reason for this was almost certainly lack of water. When all pools were low following drought, the upper mills would divert the river into their races by means of plank weirs and little water would get down to Greet. Like Heath Mill and other set on a small main stream, Greet suffered in flood but could not retain enough water to keep it going in dry times. The Cole has a fast run-off and few tributaries above the millsites, so that it rises and falls quickly.

Sarehole and Titterford were also finding waterpower inadequate about mid-century, and bath had steam-engines installed at that time, as did Wychall. That of Titterford produced 20 h.p., whereas the wheels produced only 6 h.p. This small figure, obtained only by long head and tail races and an embanked pool covering 7.5 acres, is explanation enough for the introduction of steam engines when they became reliable and steady in performance, and when fuel could be brought by canal. A few years later Titterford became a steel-rolling mill, its corn-grinding machinery going to Sarehole; it seems likely that the latter could not compete with the new B. S. A. factory two miles downstream, and so reverted to corn as so many mills did in their last years.

Them two Hay Mills shown on the map were not in existence at the same time, the lower replacing the upper as late as 1830, a testimony to the continuing regard in which waterpower was then held. But with the transfer to the site of wire-drawing machinery from Penns Hall in 1860, and the enlargement of the works to produce wire for the Atlantic Cable, the watermill disappeared.

The slump in arable farming due to American wheat imports in the 80's, the invention of roller-mills, the establishment of large steam-driven mills at ports, and the spread of building across farmland, brought the closure of nearly all watermills in the next three decades. Thus Sarehole, whose income from milling in 1894 was less than œ 55, went out of use in 1919, and Colebrook Priory Mill soon afterwards, following the construction of a roller mill at Shirley Station near by. Titterford and Wash Mills had already closed; Coleshill, the first on the river, was the last to go, being intermittently in use until 1930. The buildings of Sarehole. (the wheels still in place), Colebrook Priory, and Babbs Mill are still standing.

The story of the River Blythe as a source of power is quickly told. In 1086 there were mills at Temple Balsall, Hampton, Packington (two) and Maxstoke. The first-named was worth 60 shillings. Great and Little Packington had six mills between them in the sixteenth century. Solihull seems to have made little use of the Blythe, (its four Cole mills were nearly four miles from the village), but Henwood Priory had its mill, and there was one at Monkspath. No evidence is available that any Blythe mill was in use for other than corn-grinding until recent times, but that some at least prospered in so doing the surviving structure show. While Monkspath, Barston, Balsall and Bradnock Mills have disappeared, the large brick buildings of Darley Green (1768), Henwood, Mercote Hall, Meriden and Maxstoke, all of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century date testify to flourishing agriculture and profitable milling.

The Blythe has a small gradient but an abundant flow : thus it could drive undershot wheels, 9 feet diameter at Hendwood, and 15 feet at Maxstoke and Blythe Hall. Its tributaries having a steeper fall, overshot wheels were employed thereon, at Darley Green, Mercote Hall and Packington, 12-15 feet diameter. Meriden also had an overshot wheel, although powered by the main stream as well as side ones; this was possible because the race could be cut across a mile-long loop of the river and the wheel set at the terrace edge, with a good fall. The surviving wheels are of light metal construction; the ruins of Packington show the wheel there to have had metal rims and spokes, timber spindle and buckets.

Meriden and Bradnock, probably Darley Green, went out of use early this century, but the first remained intact until 1956, and consideration was given to using it during the 1939-45 War, when port mills were out of action due to bombing. Henwood was in use until 1934, and the wheel can still be turned. Mercote Hall could still be used, and its last task was the generation of electricity for farm use during the War. Maxstoke was in use until 1945, when the main spindle collapsed; it may thus hold the local record for length of service as a mill-site.

At the end of this account of the development and decline of waterpower on local rivers, it is pleasant to be able to record that one mill survives and flourishes. This is the Blythe Hall Mill, a 1754 rebuilding of a mill first erected about 1100. It lies athwart a wide arm of the Blythe, the main stream falling over a weir 100 yards above it. The 15 foot diameter wheel, 4 feet wide, has 45 metal paddles and weighs 20 tons. At full speed it can generate 80 horsepower. Three pairs of 5-foot burr stones have been replaced by hammer-milling equipment, but the wheel still provides power for all processes and has been used to generate electricity. Various grains are milled, grown locally or imported via Avonmouth and collected by the millers' own vehicles.