THE COMMUNICATIONS OF YARDLEY

Yardley lies between Birmingham and the towns to the south and east, so that all communications with these have to cut the narrow width of the parish : there has never been an important route along its length. The main roads to Coventry, Warwick, and Stratford, which cut the parish into its four administrative quarters, were maintained by statutory labour supervised by the Overseers of Highway, but maintained very poorly. Coventry Road was particularly bad, There were only footbridges across the Cole, whose approaches and fords were impassable after rains and dangerous in flood.

The Birmingham and Edgehill Turnpike (Stratford Road) and the Birmingham and Warmington Turnpike (Warwick Road) were instituted in 1725, with tollgates at the 'Mermaid' junction, at Greet Mill, Cole Bank (probably School Road junction), and at Acocks Green. Coventry Road was turnpiked 20 years later with a tollgate at the 'Swan'.

Greet Mill ford remained in use, so presumably there was still no wain bridge at first : in 1777, after the rebuilding of the mill, a brick bridge was placed over the tail-race. Eleven years earlier, Greet Bridge on Warwick Road, a 'substantial stone bridge' shown on Beighton's map of 1725, was largely washed away by floods. When re-built in 1777 it had four arches, the two central ones carrying a causeway on an island between two arms of the river. For failing to repair later damage the Yardley Overseers were indicted in 1817, and the bridge was then restored. It was rebuilt over a single channel in 1902, as was the Stratford Road bridge in 1914.

Index