Natural Vegetation

The Quarter's varying geology has affected natural growth, communications, settlement, and occupations, all of which will be considered in later chapters. Keuper Marl's retention of surface water favours the growth of oak trees, which require vast quantities of moisture. Oaks tolerate thick undergrowth of bush and bramble. Except when climatic conditions were arctic, or hotter and drier than now, the natural cover of our region was oak forest, so dense as to be largely impenetrable. On permeable drift, tree-cover was less thick, dwindling to bush and shrub and grass on the driest and stoniest patches. The marshes of the deep-silted valleys were reedy and tussocky, with groves of willow and alder at their edges. About the Cole-Spark confluence the bogs were 200 yards wide.

Thus the Quarter had a variety of vegetation types. The infertile highest levels, across which go Stratford and Yardley Wood Roads, had patchy woodland, birch, hazel, and gorsy heath; the west and east plateaux were separated by boggy valleys whose rounded sides were clad in great oaks and thick underbrush.

The nature of the soil and its vegetation need not be deduced from geology alone; surviving topographical names, notably on the 1843 Tithe Map of Yardley, provide a description of both (map 4). South of the Rea lay ancient Arden, perhaps derived from Celtic words meaning 'steep woodland'. This is an apt name for the southern edges of the Midland Plateau, though not for the wide levels hereabouts. Arden was never a forest in the legal sense, had no definite bounds, and contained all the varieties of vegetation found in the Swanshurst Quarter. There are several local names which indicate silvan scenery.

'Yardley Wood' was formerly all of the manor south of the Stockfield/Acocks Green Field system, contiguous with the woods of Solihull and Kings Norton, which shrank in size and changed in character until as 'Yardley Wood Common' it was a bare common pasture in the far south. Within the Wood other names appeared, notably Swanshurst (first ref.1221). The 'hurst' ending means a small wood, but the fact of its use for pasturage in the C 13th suggests, as does geology, that this was no deciduous jungle but open woodland; doubtless after some centuries of use there would have been partial clearance too. In AD 972 a 'tall oak' was one of the boundary marks on Yardley's west side.

Oaklands (Farm) on a tongue of marl by Primrose Brook, Woodlands Farm, Grove Farm, Oaks Fallow on Shirley Brook, the Grove off Baldwins Lane, Wood Meadows at Showell Green and west of the Dingle, are all names indicative of former cover if not still existing in the C 19th when they were recorded. By that time only small copses survived - or had been allow to regenerate as coverts for game - such as Little Wood east of Baldwin's Lane/Scribers Lane, Woods west of Coldbath Pool and Wood Piece on Newey Goodman's playing field. The -ley ending of Bulley, Billesley, and Shirley, was given to settlements in forest clearings, natural ones which were extended during many generations. Riddings were areas so cleared; there were so at Billesley.

Evidences of drift are plentiful in local names. Greet is Old English 'greot' (grit or gravel) and the name was once applicable from Coventry Road to Billesley Lane. Greet Hall lay just north of Warwick Road and gave its name to a Quarter. The crossing of Cole by both Stratford and Warwick Road was called Greet Ford. The latter was first with Greet Bridge, but the former had Greet Mill beside it. Greet Common and Greethurst lay to the west thereof. One of Greet Manor's fields, east of Stratford Road, was Gravel Field on Gravelly Hill.

On Heyne (High) Field, now Sparkhill Park, were Hazel Dell and Birch Leys, indicating the natural varieties of tree found on dry drift. Stoney Lane was well-named; it could run so close to Spark Brook because it had a firm gravel foundation. Gravel pits were dug beside Billesley Lane and Wake Green Road. There were sandpits below Swanshurst Farm and off Brook Lane, while Sandy Hill, Coney Green, and Coningtree Croft describes the dry sandy slopes in which rabbits (connies) made their burrows.

Because land-drainage was not completed until this century, many names testifying to poorly-drained land have survived. The 'laundes' on the boundary (see below) and the 'slades' were boggy valleys bordered by trees, as were the 'mores' or 'moors' beside every brook. The original 'holm' ending of Sarehole, which name was applicable from the Dingle to Green Road ford, meant 'flood-meadow'. The mire of Puggemire Farm was due to the Chinn Valley's clay-bordered silt; after the Pugges had gone, the name became still more expressive as Quagmire.