CHURCHES

For many centuries the only church in Yardley was St. Edburgha's, three miles from our districts. In 1704 Marston Chapel was consecrated at Hall Green, much nearer.

Not until 1878 did Sparkhill have a church, though there were house meetings and missions earlier. In that year the corrugated iron chapel of St. John was opened at the Stratford Road corner of Sturge Street, which was thereupon renamed. The chapel was rebuilt in brick eleven years later and enparished in 1894 prior to enlargement. St. Bede's having begun as a mission in the 'Warwick Market' row, moved to its present site opposite Greet School in 1907; it remains a mission of St. John's in its green 'tin tabernacle'.

Emmanuel Church on Golden Hillock Road (1901) acquired a parish in 1928 which included the northmost part of St. John's. The latter's Anglican neighbours now are St. Christopher Springfield (chapel 1907, parish 1911), St. Edmund's Tyseley (1895 & 1931), and St. Agnes Moseley (1884 & 1914).

Several Nonconformist churches and chapels have been opened since the '80's, of which some have closed or been taken over by West Indian or Asian sects. The Byzantine R. C. Church of the English Martyrs has stood in Evelyn Road since 1923, though it was not fully consecrated until '46.