TWENTIETH CENTURY

In 1913 most of the Taylor land was sold. Birmingham Corporation, which had taken over Yardley two years before, bought much of the land for open space and municipal housing. By this time suburban housing had enveloped Sparkhill and half of Springfield : Grove Farm. a Greswold property from the C 16th and latterly the home of the Izods, was sold and demolished in 1896. Swanshurst, abandoned by the Dolphins in 1854, survived as a tenement for a few years then lay empty until an eccentric solicitor, Stanbury Eardley, went to live in the ruin in 1906. It was he who invented / revived the legends about King Arthur. The house was finally demolished in 1917, but some of the timbers were used in a new house called Swanshurst on Russell Road, Moseley.

Steam trams from Birmingham reached Sparkhill by 1885, and by the end of the C 19th they went as far as the common boundary of Birmingham (Balsall Heath), Kings Norton (Moseley), and Yardley RD on Stoney Lane. Trams never reached farther south on that route, but by 1907 when all the steamers had been replaced by electric trams the Stratford Road line had reached the Cole. When the two humped brick bridges were replaced by the present one in 1913 (over a new central channel which drove through the forgotten foundations of Greet Mill), the tracks were laid to Hall Green and later to the city boundary.

Meanwhile the North Warks. Railway had been built from the Banbury Line (1852) at Tyseley through Hall Green and Yardley Wood, opening in 1907 - and probably closing in 1969. The narrow lanes of Yardley were quite unsuitable for trams, and soon after WW I motor bus routes were provided. Two fatalities on Yardley Wood Road, a steep descent to the brook and a blind bend, brought quick raising and widening of the road at the site of Lady Mill. This No. 13 route was preceded by the first to be established, between the city centre, Edgbaston, and Acocks Green : thus Wake Green acquired its bus service, No. 1.

Many old houses and farms were demolished in the 20's and 30's, including Woodlands, Springfield House and Farm, Ashleigh Grange, Little Sarehole and Brook Farm. Billesley Hall, so-called, was rebuilt early in the century, becoming the clubhouse of Moseley Golf Course in 1905. The land of Ivyhouse Farm (off Brook Lane) was opened as a city park in 1922, so that part of Swanshurst Common, like Billesley Common, came back to the local people. Old Pool had been roughly drained in the 1890's : its dam and brick-lined gate may still be seen in The Dell. Coldbath Pool is half-reeded over, but Swanshurst Pool is still as attractive as ever. Its hatchery is infilled, but the fishermen still gather.

Since WW II still more houses have gone, though most of them are no great loss. Building, whether by Corporation or company, is a matter of cramming as many small houses into the grounds of a Victorian mansion or Georgian farm as possible. Hilly Field and Old Pool Meadow are overbuilt, so are Coldbath Farm and Ladymill Pool. Sarehole Mill is restored.