THE BOUNDS OF YARDLEY

The dean was doubtless the boggy Spark vale, the oak may well have stood at the north end of Belle Walk, and the well or spring was possibly the source of Showell Green Brook. Colle was the River Cole.

The importance of the Spark as a boundary is worth noting, especially since its virtual disappearance.

In its time it has separated two people (Angles & Saxons), two kingdoms (Mercia & Hwiccia), two sees (Lichfield & Worcester), two shires (Warwick & Worcester), three Manors (Aston, Bromsgrove & Yardley - later Bordesley, Norton, & Greet), three Parishes (Bromsgrove, chapelry of St. Nicholas Kings Norton, later chapelry of St. Mary Moseley, Aston, later chapelry of St. John Deritend. and St. Edburgha Yardley, later chapelry of St. John Sparkhill), three Civil Parishes (Aston, Kings Norton, Yardley), four administrative 'ends' within them (Bordesley End, Moseley Yield, Greet & Swanshurst Quarters), the two sides in the Civil War (Warwickshire for Parliament, Worcestershire for King), three Poor Law Unions (Aston, Kings Norton & Northfield, & Solihull), a Borough Ward (Bordesley of Birmingham) and two Local Boards (Balsall Heath and Kings Norton & Northfield), and two Wards of a Rural District (Sparkhill East and West of Yardley), five City Wards and three Constituencies, and three Postal Districts!

In 1495, a surviving Presentment tell us, twelve jurors of Yardley met and walked with a dozen from every neighbouring manor in turn along their common boundaries, and took their oaths upon the correctness of the 'Meares'.

Local ones were listed as Spark Brook, Spark Green, Low Lane (Stoney Lane), the Gilden Corner (perhaps the corner of Moseley Tax Yield), the greenway (Belle Walk) and Bulley Lane (Billesley Lane, wrongly named, for the lane led to the ancient settlement site of Bulley, now occupied by Moseley Golf Clubhouse).

The Yardleians took leave of the Bordesleians and greeted the Nortonians at Highgate Road's junction with Stoney Lane, going south with them as far as Highters Heath.

These bounds remained unaltered, though the status of the territories on either side altered until they ceased to have other than City Ward significance in 1912. True, in 1896 the boundary was apparently moved form the east side of Stoney Lane to its centre, but this due to the widening of the lane to cover the stagnant Spark and provide a road surface fit for tramcar tracks.