Public Transport

Horse 'buses plied from Birmingham to the Mermaid in the 1870's. By '85 steam trams had reached Sparkhill, a depot being built on the site of the present Salvation Army Citadel. A few years later running lines were laid to Knowle Road; further extension had to await rebuilding of the narrow humped bridges over the former millrace and the disused river channel. Meanwhile Birmingham had taken in Balsall Heath from Kings Norton ((1891) and wished to lay lines along Stoney Lane to what was then the city boundary, opposite Esme Road.

There used to be a cast-iron sign indicating that Birmingham, Yardley R. D., and Kings Norton and Northfield U. D. met there. Trees survive which once stood beside Spark Brook thereby. It was at that time a dismal trickle, its bed a dump for rubbish; so, largely at City expense, the lane was remade and widened over a culvert in which the brook ran thenceforth. The boundary ran down the middle of the lane until the enlargements of 1912. In '96 the first trams - electric ones - arrived at the farthest point they were ever to reach on that route.

In 1907 the G. W. R. constructed the North Warwickshire Line from Tyseley to Stratford. It came across the central ridge in a cutting; a station was opened at Stratford Road and a halt at Highfield Road, the latter becoming Yardley Wood Station 11 years later. From the opening of the line it was obvious that Hall Green would become a popular commuter district. The 1913 advertisements for Southam Road's first houses referred to the nearby station and to the projected tramway extension. This had followed immediately after the making of the present Cole bridge, and by 1914 one could ride on an electric tram as far south as the Bull's Head. When track work resumed in '28 the lines were laid on sleeper tracks along central grassed reservations, with a wide carriageway on either side, to the boundary at Shirley.

The lanes of the Quarter, like those elsewhere in Yardley, were quite unsuitable for trams - and little better for 'buses. The 1 and 1A routes were served by open-topped petrol buses from 1920 after road surfaces and lighting improvement along Wake Green and College Roads. An early service from Stoney Lane tram terminus to 'The Valley' on Yardley Wood Road caused deaths in '24, when two girls were killed at Coldbath Bridge, where the hedged lane was narrow, steep, and sharp-bending.

The road thereat was hurriedly widened, raised, and straightened, and a compulsory stop was put at the brook culvert. In '26 the Outer Circle 'bus service began (though it did not go right round the city until '28), along Brook Lane, Coldbath Road, Swanshurst Lane, Colebank Road, and so out of the Quarter by an awkward dog-leg into School Road. Improvement work on this route included the rebuilding of the Cole bridge by Sarehole Mill. Other services traversing the Quarter by the decade's end were the 13, 13A, 24, 29 and 29A.

Beyond the Outer Circle, a Ring Road was planned to go through more open country. Wheelers, Brook, and Robin Hood Lanes and Highfield Road were part of this; during the thirties unemployed men were engaged in the clearance of land on the line of this road, which was to be a dual carriageway throughout with islanded intersections, as were Stratford, Priory, and Yardley Wood Roads. This work involved the destruction of many great trees and a number of farmhouses and cottages.

In the late '30's and '40's trams were replaced by diesel 'buses on all routes. When World War II brought an almost immediate end to road works, Highfield Road was completed from Four Ways to the Cole, but the other roads were single carriageways bordered by green swaths - and so they remain, except for Priory Road, improved almost to the boundary. By decision of the West Midlands Council, the 60-year-old scheme will never be resumed.

The approach ramps for the new bridge by which Highfield Road was intended to cross the Cole before sweeping on up the opposite bank to join the widened School Road are already four decades old, and should soon qualify for preservation as ancient monuments. High Bridge is still as narrow as when first built, though the companion bridge on Yardley Wood Road was replaced before World War II.