Yardley, Birmingham
Encyclopedia : Y : YA : YAR : Yardley, Birmingham
Yardley is an area in east Birmingham, England. It is also a formal district, managed by its own district committee.
Birmingham Yardley is a constituency and its Member of Parliament is John Hemming.
Yardley has three main primary schools. These are Yardley, Hobmoor and Lyndon Green. It also has two main secondary schools, which are Cockshut Hill and Sheldon Heath.
Yardley's main shopping area is known as Yew Tree, named after the yew that stood on the roundabout at the junction in the centre of Yardley. Sadly, it was damaged during work to the roundabout, and ended up having to be cut down. It was later replaced by another tree, which is still growing; however, a local ecologist claimed that the tree is not a yew but a poplar tree.
Yardley was once well known for its pub, also called The Yew Tree, which was shut down and set on fire twice. One of the fires caused an adjacent road, Stoney Lane, to be closed to traffic for one day. It was later demolished and replaced by a Co-op supermarket and a set of restaurants. A new Yew Tree pub has now opened.
Within the confines of it's boundaries Yardley also boasts the 17th century farmhouse Blakesley Hall which is a Grade II Listed building located. It is one of the few black and white timber-framed buildings left standing in the city and dates from Elizabethan times. In fact it is the finest Elizabethan building in the city. Blakesley Hall, like Aston Hall, now belongs to the City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and vast restoration work has recently been completed in an attempt to recapture the atmosphere of the 17th century and to reconstruct the original layout of the building after inappropriate alterations in the first half of the 20th century. It was reopened to the public in May 2002. The original owner of the house was Richard Smalbroke, a wealthy merchant and farmer. It was built in 1590 and remained in the family until it passed into the hands of the Greswoldes in 1685. It was then occupied by tenant farmers and, as happens in most of these cases, settled into a steady period of neglect until a certain Henry Donne decided to purchase the property and renovate it in 1899-1900. The house then became the property of a local manufacturer before being taken over by the City of Birmingham and transformed into a museum in the 1930s. The pattern of the timber-framed ground floor was originally all close studding, part of which has still survived; the first floor is herring bone and the second floor has quadrant bracing. The original layout of the ground-floor rooms has recently been restored and furnished with period furniture. The long table in the great hall is original but the rest has been reconstructed on the basis of an inventory dated 1684. Upstairs are 16th century wall paintings which came to light in the 1950s. Whoever decides to visit Blakesley Hall should go one step further, cross the main road near the Hall (Stoney Lane) and go beyond the houses and grass verge that flank the main road. There he will find a charming, unspoilt, village-like atmosphere, an unbelievable oasis far from the eyes of those who rush through life unaware of what is around them. This secluded spot is known as Old Yardley Village.
Postal address of Blakesley Hall:
Blakesley Hall Blakesley Road Yardley Birmingham B25 8RN
Opening times are 11.30am to 4pm, Tuesday to Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday The Hall is open April to October Admission free For more detailed information call: Tel: +44 (0) 121 464 2193
Yardley is not a new town. Yardley is named in the Domesday Book and was referred to as early as 972 in a passage written by monks, who called it Gyrdleah. However, the boundaries of the medieval parish- which survived until 1911, when it was incorporated into Birmingham- are nothing like that of the modern district. Yardley has a Tudor hall called Blakesley Hall and an old church that also dates back to the Tudor period. A sign of its age is a doorway surrounded by Tudor roses and a pomegranate, commemorating the marriage of Prince Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Aragon. A sizeable amount of Yardley, called Old Yardley, is a conservation area.
Yardley's nearest train station is Stechford. It is served by many West Midlands buses, most connecting to Birmingham city centre, Chelmsley Wood and Solihull.
Yardley has also had a royal visit by Princess Anne. She drove herself to Yardley and visited a charity shop run by Sense, an organisation which helps blind people.
External links
| Formal Districts in Birmingham: |
| Edgbaston | Erdington | Hall Green | Hodge Hill | Ladywood | Northfield | Perry Barr | Selly Oak | Sparkbrook | Sutton Coldfield | Yardley |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.