FIRST FOOTERS

During one warm period of prehistory the soaked landscape of post-glacial times dried out until it could not support tree growth. Tracks were perhaps trodden out then and crossing-places of dry river-beds used which were maintained when wetter conditions and arboreal abundance returned.

Certainly animals kept open trails from clear ridges o watering and fording places where stony patches provided firm going. Hunters of successive primitive cultures followed these tracks and used the fords.

Nomads left no trace of their passing, and later prehistory has no tale to tell of Sparkhill and its environs. 'Arden', the Celtic name given to the great tract of forest and heath which covered the plateau within the Severn / Trent / Avon triangle, attracted few settlers; but we cannot say for certain that there were none, or that some clearance for agriculture had not been undertaken before the Saxons came.

Three miles due south of Sparkhill is the remnant of an 11-acres hillcamp, Berry Mound in Solihull Lodge, which must have been the permanent stronghold of a large tribe, whose territory could have included ours. Roman legionaries cut a road we call Ryknild Street across what is now West Birmingham, and built a for at Metchley which became a civil settlement. But of Romano-British activity hereabout nothing is known. Two coins of the Empire have been found on Sparkhill, but no roads or buildings.

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