VANISHED ANTIQUITIES

1. Moated Sites, There have certainly been 8 of these, perhaps 11, in Yardley. But this is unlikely to have been the grand total, for doubtless many of the known early settlement sites had moats which were filled with rubbish or contracted to farm ponds before antiquarians became interested in recording water defences. All the known Yardley moats have been infilled this century.

The possible ones were 'the Moats' below Brigfield Crescent on Yardley Wood Road, and two sites on the eastern bound, where Broomhall Brook crosses Gospel Lane and just south of Warwick Road. All the moats were dug in Keuper Marl, which retains water, and were fed by a stream or directly by a spring from the drift capping nearby.

The only other earthworks known are 'Clay Walls' near Langley Hall, and an 11-acre site at Swanshurst : even the site of the latter, which was ploughed out in the 1820's, is not certain, and no guess can be made about its date or purpose.

2. Ancient Buildings. The former dwellings within the moats have all gone. 'Allestrey Hall' near St.Edburgha's Church, was demolished about 1700, Glebe Farm c.1934, Hyron Hall c.1927 and Broom Hall c.1950. The last three were all rebuildings, of the late 18th or early 19th C. Nothing is known of buildings on the other sites, all having disappeared at dates before detailed maps were produced.

The oldest buildings to survive into this century, but now gone, were probably Swanshurst, home of the Dolphins 15 - 19th C, a 15th C Hall with a half-timbered wing of 1600 and a brick one added in the later 1700's, demolished 1917 : Hall Green Hall 16th C, with one brick wing and alterations of later date, home of Marstons and Severnes; demolished 1936 : Shaftmoor, 16th C, timbered and plastered, where lived Greswolds and Steedmans, demolished c.1910 : Vintage Cottage 16th C and later - demolished 1964 : Grove Farm 1651, half-timbered and later bricked in, enlarged 1815, Greswolds and Izods, demolished 1896 : Ashleigh Grange 16th C, half-timbered Hall, demolished between the wars : Stockfield Farm 17th C, half-timbered, demolished c.1925. Buildings which disappeared earlier were Greetville (site unknown), Bulley Hall, and Greet Manor House : the last two were replaced by farms called Billesley Hall and Manor Farm, which have also gone.

The four windmills of Yardley had been razed by mid-19th C. Of the watermills, eight in number, Lower Greet (Tyseley Brook) was first to go, in the 18th C, and the others, except Sarehole, have all been demolished since then : Lady Mill (soon after 1834), Greet (1855), Hay Mill (1865), Broomhall (1870?), Wash Mill and Titterford (c.1925?).