| Yardley was called in the Charter 'Gyrdleahe' and it appeared in
the Domesday Book as 'Gerlei' (G pronounced as Y), being there linked
with Beoley. Little can be made of the brief entry save that the manor
was sparsely populated and well wooded. Clay underlies the whole area,
an impervious rock which retains water on the surface and so favours
the growth of oak forest. This is characterised by dense undergrowth,
and in the natural state it formed impenetrable deciduous jungle,
thinning out only where glacial drift deposits of porous and stony
material over-lay the clay and where streamside bogs were too wet
except for willow and alder such as now fill the poorly-drained lakebed
behind the school.
The Wake Green area is covered with some feet of sand and gravel,
which provide the district name of Greet (greot, grit, gravel) and
the reason for the overgrown quarry south of the school. The natural
appearance of this area would be an east-sloping heath of gorse
and bush with some tree clumps, with the wide marshes of the Cole
at its foot and many bog-bordered streams descending to it. There
were springs and rills everywhere, most of them long since dry,
and the river was a wide sluggish stream oozing through marshes.
It rose and fell much less rapidly than now, for the woods and bogs
retained rainwater as well-drained pastures do not.
South of Spark Brook the tributaries were as follows :- The Showell
Green Brook, rising near the junction of Yardley Wood Road and Wake
Green Road, flows beside Sparkhill Park and is there above ground,
entering the Cole near Formans Road. Grove Brook rose beside Fulford
Hall and is now lost. Springfield Brook flowed from a spring east
of Moseley Grammar School, and is still to be seen in the allotments
before being culverted at Springfield Road. The largest tributary
hereabouts is the Bulley, Greethurst, or Coldbath Brook, which rises
on Kings Heath and flows across the golf course and through 'The
Dell' behind the school, descending to Sarehole Millpool and a diverted
confluence at Green Road ford.
Just to the south is Swanshurst Brook, formerly rising off Coldbath
Road. These last two streams were relatively steeply-falling in comparatively
narrow valleys which could be dammed. |
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