TUDOR AND STUART TIMES

Thomas Holte (of the family that later lived in Aston Hall) was the owner of Greethurst when in 1517 it was seized by Richard Greswold of Shaftmoor. He had to give the estate back. In 1578 ' the mansion....called Holte's Greethurst alias Holte's Place' was sold by Edward Holte to Richard Grevis. The estate probably then covered about 65 acres. The man who became Sir Richard Grevis was the most fortunate member of a Moseley yeoman family which had done well out of the purchase of church lands after the Dissolution : he bought the lordship of Yardley, and it is because of his ownership of nearly all of Swanshurst Quarter south of Wake Green Road and west of the Cole that the name 'Moseley' has crept over the boundary. The Dolphins of Swanshurst (from 1480) were the only other landowners of importance.

Sarehole Mill was rebuilt by John Bedell of Beoley in 1542, on land belonging to Daniel Benford. For many years it was called Biddle's Mill. The only source of water was Coldbath Brook, which already powered Lady Mill, and the pond in the flood-meadow was very small. The date when Great Pool (Old Pool, Dell Pool) was made to provide a water reserve for Sarehole is now known, nor can Coldbath Pool be dated : but probably both pre-date Swanshurst Pool, made in the 1750's.

Late in Elizabeth's reign civil parishes were set up, based on the ecclesiastical ones. Unpaid overseers were appointed to collect rates for poor relief and road maintenance. Yardley was so large that it had to be split into four Quarters : the whole of the parish south of Stratford Road was named after the home of the Dolphins, who like all other substantial farmers, had to undertake the overseers' tasks.

Enclosure of the open fields in Yardley was a slow piecemeal process for some centuries. Tenants took up vacant strips next to their own, or made exchanges to give themselves a compact holding on which a house might be built. Greet Fields were perhaps enclosed quite early : their names though not their extent lasted into the C 19th. Much of the landscape was bare of trees in Elizabeth's reign - the axemen and charcoal-burners had been long at work providing timber for houses and ships, fuel for the forges of Birmingham.

Few of our large trees are more than three centuries old. There was some encroachment upon the Common from the edges, but the school site remained open until the C 19th. Scarcity of timber had made necessary the chequerboard style of building, but the large rectangles between beams sometimes lost their wattle-and-daub infillings during gales : the revived art of brick-making had hundreds of feet of clay below the top deposits to draw upon, and many farms had pits and kilns to provide winter work and a profitable export. A few of the many scores of pit-ponds of Yardley a century ago are shown on the Tithe Map.

The Greethurst estate is said to have been used as a shooting preserve from the C 17th. Bird life, game, and fish were plentiful hereabouts. In the largely rebuilt Coldbath Cottage is said to be a carved C 17th fire-place. The Civil War passed by Greet Common : the Grevises backed the losing side, and were fined heavily by victorious Parliament.

Probably during Stuart times Lady Mill went over to wire-drawing : the Common squatters practised cottage industry, notably nail-making and basketry, and the mill now provided wire for nails, while the osier beds in the water-logged Mill Meadow supplied withies. To replace the corn mill a windmill was built on the knoll downstream : it would be a post-mill like the one not far away that David Cox drew in the early C 19th.

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