ANCIENT BUILDINGS

Except for Hay Hall, which is C 15th half-timbered with Stuart brick encasing, there are no buildings anywhere in our district more than 250 years old.

The Manor House of Greet, not to be confused with the later Greet House, stood on a moat platform beside the early C 20th Greet Inn. It was originally a close-timbered hall like the Trust School in Yardley Village. Whether it was rebuilt by Humphrey Greswold or not in Blakesley Hall style, it was certainly rebuilt in later Georgian times, being known thereafter as Manor Farm.

Manor Farm Road, made when the buildings were demolished, commemorates them. Across the highway was a Stuart mansion, known in its last years of decay, the 1920's, as 'The Miser's House'.

Other houses stood about the junction with Weston Lane, for this was the hamlet of Greet; among them were the 'Blew Ball'inn of 1741, and the 'Swan' near the bridge of 1756. At about that time Greet House was built on the gravelly summit nearby; it survived until the decade following World War I.

To the east were Tyseley Grange, demolished in 1967, a Stuart brick and tile house much altered and enlarged about 1860, and Tyseley Farm. This was a group of brick buildings, probably Georgian, built beside the moat of the ancient farmhouse. South was Shaftmoor, a three-gabled half-timbered farmhouse of the C 16th.

Greswold property, it was the home of the Steedmans for two centuries before its demolition in 1910. Nearby was Greet Mill Hill Farm, a low C 18th house with outbuildings. One of these, a barn of 1850, survived the demolition of a century later, and is used as a store by a timber merchant.

In a site between Grove and Greswolde Roads stood (until 1896 when the Freehold Land Society bought the estate) Grove Farm. An earlier building on or near the spot was Fulford (Foul Ford) Hall.

Latterly home of the Izods, Grove Farm was C 15th and Stuart half-timbering, much added to and patched, interesting rather than attractive. Woodlands Farm nearby lasted a few years longer. Showell Green House was an undistinguished Georgian mansion, latterly a hospital annexe; it stood on Showell Green Lane north of Philip Sidney Road until replaced by a row of 'town houses' a decade or so ago.

In '78 Showellhurst, a shuttered Regency mansion nearly opposite, was a regretted loss. Up the lane are Yew Tree Cottage and part of No.123 which are early C 19th, and on Yardley Wood Road is 'The Firs' of about 1840. A recent development on the remnant of Showell Green has incorporated a row of cottages of mid-C 19th date.

Shrubbery Farm, latterly Sparkhill Nursery, was a large group of brick buildings on three sides of a yard. Its site, between Ivor and Esme Roads, is now overbuilt. Sparkhill Farm, lying back from the Stratford Road opposite Baker Street, lasted until the 1880's. Sparkhill House and its outbuildings still stand at the end of Showell Green Lane, embedded in a row of shops; they were built in the late '90's, a half-century after the house.

The 'Mermaid' inn before its rebuilding in the '80's was a three-storey house of about 1740, with a farmhouse alongside. The corner towers were destroyed in the blitz, but the old carved sign was restored and reset.

On Warwick Road were Rose Cottage opposite St. John's Road, and Greet Farm. With 115 acres on both sides of the highway and the river, this was one of the largest farms hereabout, and its lush meadows must have produced fine livestock.

The farm buildings stood until the '80's when Percy Road was cut, and Greet School was built on the site a few years later. James Place on Avon Street (1856), Perseverance Place nearby (1870), and Somersault and Coleman Cottages ('69-70) on Baker Street, have been incorporated into terraces of a decade or so later.