Place:Yardley, Worcestershire, England

NameYardley
Alt namesSouth Yardleysource: episcopal parish within Yardley
Gilbertstonesource: settlement in parish
Stechfordsource: settlement in parish
Stetchfordsource: incorrect spelling of above
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish, Constituency
Coordinates52.465°N 1.813°W
Located inWorcestershire, England     ( - 1912)
Also located inWarwickshire, England     (1912 - 1974)
West Midlands     (1974 - )
See alsoHalfshire Hundred, Worcestershire, Englandhundred of which the parish was a part
Yardley Rural, Worcestershire, Englandrural district in which the parish was located 1894-1912
Birmingham, Warwickshire, Englandcity into which it was absorbed in 1912
Birmingham (metropolitan borough), West Midlands, Englandmetropolitan borough covering the area since 1974
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog

From the early 20th century until 1974 Yardley was an area in eastern part of Birmingham, England. It was in Worcestershire until 1911 (see below). From 1911 until 1974 it was part of the county of Warwickshire and since 1974 it has been located in the Birmingham Metropolitan Borough in the County of the West Midlands.

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History

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Yardley was an ancient parish within Worcestershire and a civil parish within that county. From 1894 until 1911 it was the sole parish in Yardley Rural District. In 1911 it was transferred across the county border to Warwickshire and absorbed into the civil parish of Birmingham.

Yardley is named in the Domesday Book of 1086 and was referred to as early as 972 in King Edgar's Charter where it is named "Gyrdleah". It was mentioned as being under the possession of Pershore Abbey.

The ancient parish of Yardley included the areas known as Stechford and Hall Green and Gilbertstone. There remains an episcopal parish of South Yardley (now a ward of Birmingham).

Yardley has a Tudor hall called Blakesley Hall and an old church, St Edburgha's, that dates back to the 13th century, with the church tower and spire dating to the 15th century. It was not established by the abbey, but by Aston Church in the Diocese of Lichfield. A Tudor addition to the church is a doorway surrounded by Tudor roses and a pomegranate, commemorating the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales, to Catherine of Aragon in 1499.

Yardley had a manor that was owned by various lords. It remained unoccupied from 1700 onwards. It was owned by the Royal Family until 1626, when it was bought by Richard Grevis of Moseley Hall. His descendants sold it in 1759 to pay off debts. John Taylor, one of the founders of Lloyds Bank, bought the lordship in 1766. Most of the land, had by then, been purchased by other people so Taylor owned only a small portion of the original grounds.

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A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Yardley from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"YARDLEY, a parish in the [registration] district of Solihull and county of Worcester; 4 miles E of Birmingham. It contains Stechford [railway] station in the N, and Acocks-Green [railway] station in the S; is traversed by the Warwick and Birmingham canal; and has a post-office under Birmingham. Acres: 7,355. Real property: £25,252. Population in 1851: 2,753; in 1861: 3,848. Houses: 775. The manor has belonged since 1768 to the family of Taylor. There are many good residences. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester. Value: £625. Patron: Mrs. M. Severne. The church is good and has a tower and spire. The [perpetual] curacy of Marston and the vicarages of Yardley-Wood and Acocks-Green are separate benefices; and the first and the second have been separately noticed; while the third was constituted so late as 1867. A handsome new Independent chapel, with tower and spire, is at Acocks-Green; another Independent chapel is at Rushall-Lane; the Independent theological college, noticed in our article on Moseley, is at Wake-Green; and there are an endowed grammar-school with £100 a year, another endowed school with £70, a national school, and charities about £800."

Research tips

  • Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Worcestershire illustrates the parish boundaries of Worcestershire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map publication year is 1931. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
  • British History Online has a large collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. These blow up to a size that permits viewing of individual hamlets, farms, collieries, but there is no overlapping of one map to the next, and no overall map to tie the individual ones together.
  • British History Online also has three volumes of the Victoria County History of Worcestershire online. Volume 3 (published in 1913) deals with the Halfshire Hundred; Volume 4 (published in 1924) deals with the City of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree. Volume 2 covers religious houses in the county. The remainder of the county is not represented in the British History Online series.
  • GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Worcestershire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
  • The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
  • Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD (Telephone: 01905 822866, e-mail: archive@worcestershire.gov.uk) The Archives Collections Catalog Summary outlines the contents of the Archives Collection and also notes on what has been transferred to the national online service Access to Archives
  • The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry has a branch in Bromsgrove which deals in Worcestershire family history. There are also branches at Stourbridge and Worcester.
  • The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time has
  1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
  2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
  3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960
  • Brett Langston's list of Worcestershire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
  • More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.
  • Victoria County History - Worcestershire - Vol 3, pp 238-245 - Parish: Yardley. British History Online. University of London (London, 1913).
  • GENUKI main page for Warwickshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
  • Warwickshire and West Midland family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
  • The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Warwickshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
  • The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
  • A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. It shows the detached sections of Warwickshire as they were in 1832. These detached sections have now been moved into the counties that surrounded them.
  • As of October 2016 Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1535-1984 are available to search online on FamilySearch
  • As of September 2018 TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to its Warwickshire Parish Record Collection and so increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area. These are available to Genealogist Diamond Subscription holders.
  • The website British History Online provides seven volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Warwickshire. The first (Vol 2) covers the religious houses of the county; Volumes 3 through 6 provide articles the settlements in each of the hundreds in turn, and Volumes 7 and 8 deal with Birmingham and Coventry respectively. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Yardley, Birmingham. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.