BRIDGES

In 1752 and '59 horses were drowned while fording the Cole at Greet Mill. Later the county (Worcestershire) built a bridge over the river; there was one already over the mill-race.

Warwick Road had had a bridge since at the latest 1725; it was drawn with two arches on Beighton's map. A 1766 plan of Greet Farm shows five arches, the outer ones for flood-water under the approach causeway. This bridge was rebuilt 11 years later; it had been badly damaged in a flood which had swept away the timber footbridge at Formans Lane - not for the first or last time.

As still happens at Greet Mill bridge, gravel tended to pile up against the piers, and by the start of the C 19th the river was flowing in two channels round an island. It should be remembered that the Cole was then a larger stream than now; not only were there more tributaries fed by woods and bogs, but much of the rain which is now taken into drains and sewers formerly found its way to the river.

Depletion of the gravelly water-table by wells and pumps has dried up many of the brooks, and the survivors (also reduced in flow .volume) in their culverts lack replenishment.

Damage by flood in 1807 made Warwick Road Bridge unusable, and the Yardley Overseers were indicted for their failure to repair it. A major reconstruction followed and this survived until the most recent rebuilding, by Yardley R. D. C. in 1902. Formans Road Bridge was rebuilt as a road bridge a few years later.

The streets between Stratford Road and Stoney Lane stopped short of Spark Brook until it had been culverted in '96. Showell Green Brook was straightened when the Park was laid out in 1904, and culverted under Stratford Road and down to the Cole.