PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The river had never been usable as a highway except by small flat-boats. About 1795 travel by water across Yardley became possible when the Warwick and Birmingham Canal was constructed.

It came along the north slope of the Spark valley, crossing Cole just below the confluence on a long embankment; culverts were made for the river and head-race to Hay Mill. A feeder was cut from the Spark to the canal, starting just east of Stratford Road.

From a wharf at Danford Lane the folk of Greet could now travel by fast fly-boats to the outskirts of Birmingham, and a few years later to Warwick and then London. Bricks and tiles, the making of which from the excellent mudstone was a winter occupation on many Yardley farms, could be and were taken all over the Midlands by water, while coal and other supplies were brought from the town.

In 1852 the Oxford Railway was opened, broad-gauge lines crossing canal, river, and race on a high embankment which not only cut off the view downstream but impeded air flow, thus making the valley upstream more subject to fogs.

For a decade the nearest station was at Acocks Green, but then Small Heath & Sparkbrook Station was opened, chiefly to serve the new B. S. A. factory on the Golden Hillock. Sparkhillians must have thought themselves very well-served then, despite the long walk down and up Danford Lane.

Turnpikes having been abolished in 1872, horse-buses plied to the 'Mermaid' and the Tivoli Gardens behind it.

By '85 steam trams had reached The Hill, and a depot was built where now the Salvation Army Citadel stands. Later the lines were extended to Knowle Road; the humped bridges prevented further progress until their replacement.

By 1914 Corporation electric trams were going on to Four Ways Hall Green. In 1904 the long-awaited tram service began on Stoney Lane, going to what since the annexation of Balsall Heath Local Board District in 1891 had been the City boundary, just south of the Barracks.

Warwick Road required drastic improvement before trams could use it. There was a weighbridge at the 'Mermaid' to ensure that road-engines were not too heavy for the humped bridges. Horse-buses still plied to Acocks Green.

The road had to be widened, straightened, raised, and re-bridged, and the Corporation had not completed this work until 1916. Trams then ran as far as Flint Green, taking workers to the wartime factories between canal and railway on Hay Hall Estate.

The extension to Shirley and Westley Brooks were post-World War I. Warwick Road at West Greet was so narrow between terraces that a single track was laid there, its use being controlled by small red and green lights at each end.

In 1907 the North Warwickshire Line was opened by the G. W. R. from a new station, Tyseley Junction, to Stratford. This replaced an abandoned plan for an independent line parallel to Stratford Road, with a station at Baker Street. A halt was provided at Spring Road, and a station at Hall Green.

The narrow lanes and awkward intersections of rural Yardley needed remaking before tramlines could be laid, and the need for public transport was so immediate that petrol 'buses were introduced instead.

The 1 and 1A to Acocks Green and Moseley were first. College Road and Shaftmoor Lane were tarmac-surfaced and kerbed, lit and drained, for the use of open-topped 'buses from 1920. By '24 'buses were linking Stoney Lane tram terminus to Yardley Wood and Warstock.

The Inner Circle ran along Highgate and Walford Roads from '28, and a few years later there were services along Stratford Road to the new housing estates of Hall Green. In '37, for no reason other than their obstruction of traffic, the trams were taken off and the lines covered.