Sheldon After 1920.

Sheldon still a country parish, unchanged in population and function, apart from the decline of arable farming and growth of dairying and market gardening for Birmingham markets, and the arrival in clouds of dust of the motor-car, until after World War I. Then suburban building along Coventry Road, Sheaf Lane, and the south-west corner of the district (Meriden Rural District since 90's).

In 1931 Birmingham absorbed the old parish as far south as Coventry Road and as far east as Tile Cross Road. Building in south and west continued, mostly private : farms were bought and demolished. After WWII new municipal suburbs spread across the north, with shopping centres and amenities, including schools. Today of the Saxon landscape, only Elder and Ridding Fields and Radleys Moor are left without buildings, the greatest changes being the huge blocks of flats on the edge of Tile Cross Road and just over the old Yardley border on the Meadway, a new highway replacing one more than a thousand years old (Pool Lane).

This local study should either begin or end with a fairly detailed examination of Sheldon today : children should be given observational tasks, and a large-scale wallmap to plot their discoveries on. Although chronologically untidy, such work done beforehand will ensure a minimum of topographical knowledge, without which much of the study's value will be lost.