Ancient Roads

In 'The Leys of Yardley' I have shown that there are many intriguing alignments of old dwelling sites, and that a number of 'ley-lines' intersect at precise points on the sites of Swanshurst, Sparkhill, Bulley, Springfield, and Bulley Farms, and The Moats. However there is a notable lack of correspondence between ley-lines and known old roads; so that whatever the alignments indicate (if anything) they were certainly not linked by ancient tracks. In fact the routed taken by the old roads were clearly dictated by geology and natural vegetation; and it is probable that animals had trodden them out before men found them useful.

Two routes were of greatest antiquity, both ridgeways, and they may well have been pre-Saxon in use. School Road/Highfield Road/Fox Hollies Road are part of the through-Yardley way which descends from the flat plateau only to cross the Cole at Titterford and Stechford. Stratford Road winds across the level between stream-heads until it must dip to cross the Cole; it makes a sharp bend thereat to traverse the boggy valley at right-angles before resuming its north-westerly direction. The crossing point may not be the original one; before the bend the road points directly towards the Formans Road crossing, sometimes 'foul Ford'.

Greet Mill was built in the mid C 13th, and usually thereafter there was a shallows in the river immediately below the dam; I suggest that travellers used this ford, and later the top of the rebuilt weir, to that the road became permanently diverted. One Roger Fullard was in 1275 the first recorded victim of a Cole flood; he and his horse were drowned when he tried to cross at Greet Mill when the river was high and swift-flowing.

The two ridgeways met at Four Ways. It may be claimed that all other roads in the Quarter until urbanisation began as access tracks between fields, farms, and mills, developing into through-routes later. Wake Green Road/Robin Hood Lane linked Moseley Village, Sarehole Mill, and Stillfields House, for example and Brook / Webb Lanes linked Bulley, Little Sarehole, and Longfield Hall. Yardley Wood Road (Stoney Lane, Wildays Lane) was a drovers' track that linked all the commons from Showell Green to Yardley and Norton Woods - and incidentally to Berry Mound. Notably lacking was a riverside road. From Titterford north there was no direct way along the valley, and none was provided until the 1920's. There would obviously be no track on the marshy floor, but it is odd that there was none on the firm drift above the tick woods of the valley sides.

It is probable that by Tudor times the roads shown on Map 8 were all in use. The difference between fieldpaths and highways lay in the extent of wear only. The first O. S. maps bear this out, showing little distinction between them. Highways to elsewhere became worn, degenerating to holloway gorges on valley sides and to wide strips of morass on the level, because there was no road-making until Georgian times. Parishioners' grudging labour was used to mend and infill, but not to lay a firm and dry foundation.

Only 'the highway to Henley' and 'the churchway' (School Road/Highfield Road) to St. Edburgha's Church in Yardley Village would be given more than the minimum of attention. From Elizabeth I's reign Highway Overseers had to be appointed annually in each Quarter, with responsibility for bringing out the poor tenants on six statutory days to fill in holes and draw harrows over the ruts, employing horses and carts provided by the richer farmers. Work on highways for the benefit of 'foreigners' was most unwillingly performed.