Families and Houses

The Dolphins (variant spellings) farmed about fifty acres and lived at Swanshurst Farm without interruption from 1480 until 1854, when bachelor John died. (An announcement of his forthcoming marriage in Aris's Birmingham Gazette in 1826 was contradicted in the next issue). The farm was heavily mortgaged to permit purchase of a large tract of land between Robin Hood and Baldwins Lane (Hillclose Farm) in the 1840's. To the C 15-16th building a plain brick wing was added in Stuart times, and the rest of the house was then bricked between the timbers. There were large outbuildings.

After John's death Swanshurst served as a slum tenement presided over by the Widow Tomlinson. The brick wing collapsed, and vandals caused further damage when the house stood empty for three decades; then in 1906 an eccentric solicitor (Stanbury Eardley) went to live in the ruin. He believed that it stood on the site of a Saxon chapel, claiming to have found the roof and fluted wooden pillars of its chancel.

It was Eardley who revived or invented he story of King Alfred's association with Swanshurst. He was said to have made the house that then occupied the site his headquarters while his army camped in the earthwork nearby, prior to a battle against the Danish host on Berry Mound. The only documentary support for the story, and that no more than recorded hearsay, is the claim by the aggrieved peasants in 1221 that Swanshurst waste was theirs by original grant of King Alfred.

After Eardley's death the house was bought as scrap by William A. Clarke of Moseley and demolished in 1917. Some of the timbers were used as decorative features in a new house called Swanshurst in Russell Road (Moseley). The barns were pulled down three years later, when Swanshurst Lane was about to be built up. The actual site of the old farm was behind the house called, in pursuance of the legend, Berry Mount.

The Grevis (modern Greaves) family were yeoman farmers living in Moseley village. They became rich through cheap purchase of church lands at the Dissolution. Sir Richard Grevis bought Greethurst from the Holtes in 1578, and the title to and remaining land of Yardley manor from the Crown in 1629. It was the Grevises' ownership of parts of the Quarter which caused the spread of the name Moseley into it; thus Swanshurst Pool was known as Moseley New Pool to distinguish it from Old Pool on Coldbath Brook.

A succession of spendthrift heirs so reduced the estate that when the last Richard Grevis died all that was left barely sufficed to pay his debts. A few years later, in 1766, John Taylor acquired the lordship and 1013 acres, all that remained of the manorial land. Taylor, a wealthy manufacturer and co-founder of Lloyds Bank, lived at Bordesley Hall. Like nearly all of Yardley's lords he and his heirs never lived in the manor, but they were jealous of their game and fishing rights; dire warnings were given of punishments for poaching. Most of the Taylor holdings were sold in and after 1913. All manorial privileges were ended in World War II, but the courtesy holder, of the title of lord of Yardley is Jonathan Taylor of Lower Quinton Hall near Stratford. He attended the Millenary celebrations.

Grove Farm, a Maxstoke Priory property, was acquired at the Dissolution by the Greswolds. They were lords of Greet Manor and lay rectors of Yardley. The farmhouse stood off Stratford Road on a site now enclosed by Grove and Greswold Roads; still marked by some tall trees, until 1896 when a Greswold heir (who had added an 'e' to his adopted name) sold the land for building. In Green Road the low farmhouse miscalled 'The Chalet' is of Stuart date; an outbuilding still displays the chequerboard timbering that is hidden under the stucco of the house.

In, 1721 Sarehole Hall was rebuilt; its outbuildings, some of which still stand, were added more than a century later. The house was replaced by a bungalow in the late 50's. Know early Georgian buildings, all now demolished, were the Russell's home at Showell Green (destroyed in the 1791 riots), Showell Green House, which may have been a rebuilding on the Russell site and was latterly the Taylor Memorial Home, the Mermaid Inn, Springfield House, Spartans off Green Road, White House (in front of Billesley Police Station), and Cateswell.

Later ones, some from the early decades of the C 19th, were Coldbath, Ivyhouse in Brook Lane, Titterford, Moorlands, Quagmire, Paradise and Brook Farms, Titterford House (formerly Tatterford Farm) and the Bull's Head. Several of those had Yardley roof-tiles in broad bands of two shades of red; most of them replaced earlier buildings on the same sites. There is no information about the appearance or building history of Shrubbery and Sparkhill Farms; Oaklands, Ivyhouse, Barton's Folly and Derbyshire's Farms on Baldwins Lane; Robin Hood, Cole Bank, and Woodlands Farms. Billesley Farmhouse was rebuilt in the 80's.

A consequence of enclosure was the departure of a number of families from hovels about the common borers; either they had no documented rights to use of the land, of they could not afford to hedge and ditch the small pieces allotted to them. So they sold out and moved as employees into garrets on the large rebuilt farms. Many cottages disappeared. The only cluster is at Showell Green where stand the row referred to above, Yew Tree Cottage, and the older part of No.123 opposite.

Nearby on Showell Green (Shrubbery) Lane a Regency mansion called Showellhurst stood until 1978. Its shutters were not ornamental when it was built for armed assault on isolated houses was then common. About 1840 were built The Firs on Yardley Wood Road (the bay windows are fifty years later), the Bulls' Head, and Yardley Wood Cottage. Warstock House and Springfield on Yardley Wood Road opposite Woodstock Road (not to be confused with the Georgian house of that name near Springfield Farm) were built at mid-century, as was Highfield House.

Springfield's site is a small block of flats, but the others survive, as does Sparkhill House, embedded in the end of a row of shops on Stratford Road / Showell Green Lane corner. In 1857 the Cotterell Charity built two almshouses opposite Christ Church, which are still occupied. Ashfield Hall, a chequerboard house, became 'Ashleigh Grange' in its last years when it was a mere residence.

The names of some of the Quarter's tenant farmers are known; they include the Cotterells of Paradise, Bissells of Billesley and Sarehole, Webbs of Little Sarehole and Brook Farms, Poultons at Six Ways (Robin Hood Farm ?), Greens at Hall Green Hall, Glovers at the Bull's Head. That inn, before and after rebuilding, was the venue for all kinds of rural entertainment - flower shows, horse and foot races, pugilistic bouts and cock mains.