RELIEF AND DRAINAGE

The interfluvial ridge, Yardley's backbone, runs for six miles between the Cole and its east-flowing tributaries - which joint it far downstream of the manor. There is the slightest of gradients from 425 feet at 'The Swan' to 400 feet at Hillhouse, but there is then an abrupt descent of a hundred feet to the Cole. Clearly the present trickle, despite its ability to rise six feet in an hour, did not create so wide and deep a valley.

The ridge-end is cut into by Stich Brook, which formerly rose near the Yew Tree and entered Cole east of Stechford Bridge, and by Yardley Brook whose two sources were near Yardley Moat and Partridge Road. These tributaries are or were quite straight, descending directly, in contrast to Cole which, having flowed firmly northward for several miles, makes great loops to eastward across its flood-plain. This is probably due to its having formerly entered Tame near Castle Bromwich.

Barred by an ice-wall it ponded, the overflow ultimately finding its way to a confluence with the Blythe. The great meanders, indicative of the small gradient, frequently flooded the bordering meadows and made them a wide barrier to travel and use until proper drainage was undertaken last century.

The watercourses of today are few and small. When drift and topsoil were full of water, when forest retained rain and released it gradually, there were multitudinous rills of constant flow. Cole and its main tributaries were noble streams, slower to flood but mighty then and slow to decline.

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