Earlswood Lakes

The Lakes were constructed in 1821-23 to supply water to the Stratford-on-Avon Canal (opened in 1793). It was pumped by a copy of a Boulton & Watt engine (replaced by a hydraulic system in the 1950s) in the Engine House. Now without its chimney, this was close to The Red Lion, where the North Warwickshire Hunt continues to meet on occasions. The other hostelry was The Reservoir Hotel at the other end of The Causeway which in the early 1900s advertised itself as ‘The Scarborough of the Midlands’. On Bank Holiday Mondays it became very rowdy with many young people coming from Birmingham by train. Local residents stayed indoors and extra police were drafted in, usually from Coventry. A small lock-up held a few of the drunks overnight, others were taken back to the station, and the remainder fell into ditches - and sometimes the lake. Captain James Bickley wrote an apt poem describing what happened on these occasions.

The Great Western railway opened in 1908 with Earlswood Lakes Station heavily promoted to attract passengers. The North Warwickshire & Stratford Company had secured a Parliamentary Bill in 1894 but failed to raise the capital, so its rights were transferred to the GWR, which commenced work in 1905. Many pictures around this time were taken by Edward Manley, a local photographer. Sadly on his death his widow threw all his glass plates away.

Several local people offered refreshment to visitors. Bill Dolphin at ‘The Hermit’s House’ on the lakeside sold maggots for the fishermen and pies, all stored together, besides teas. The cottage was burnt down in the 1970s. Miss Sears of Singleton Cottage offered tea in her garden and newspapers. The local stores, whose deeds survive back to the 1880s, had not always been a shop. The sub-Post Office opened in 1871.

Many of the local landowners had ancient buildings. Manor Farm was occupied by the Osborne family for generations, and was now a craft centre. The Hortons lived at Elliott’s Hall: when the last John died in 1900 part of its land became the Shirley Race Course. This attracted great crowds up until WWII, but in 1955 it was sold to Shirley Golf Club. The Hall became a hotel and then, in 1967, the staff training college for Lloyds TSB.

The Mount was a mediaeval earthwork (though Dugdale thought it was Roman) at Cheswick Green. In 1904 Philip Baker, a Birmingham solicitor, bought Mount Dairy Farm with its 129 acres to turn it into a Pleasure Ground ‘as a preventive cure for the excesses of the time’, and destroyed much of the earthwork. The grounds offered fine gardens and refreshment rooms, tennis, bowling, concerts, dances, a shooting range and even classes in beekeeping. A lady parachutist jumped from a hot air balloon. An unusual feature was a garden shaped as a Maltese Cross commemorating soldiers who had served in the Boer War, including 37 VCs. The Pleasure Ground proved very popular with people arriving by horse-drawn omnibuses. A photo of the first motor bus in Earlswood was dated 1912. The grounds fell into decay during WWI and in 1916 Mr Baker decided to sell off the land in plots of 2,000 sq yds for £75 each. Many were bought by war veterans and retired munitions’ workers as intended, who erected huts or had disused railway carriages. Water came from wells, many of which were later covered over by stones from the demolished Victoria Cross Garden.

St Patrick’s Church, Salter Street, was built in 1839-40 in the fields, but was later substantially remodelled. It was next to the school which had opened there in 1816, and since 1948 has been a primary school. The church’s dedication is thought to reflect the esteem in which the Rev’d Patrick Murray Smythe (1804-72) was held. As curate of Tanworth-in-Arden from 1829 he was given oversight of the new church in that parish, before it was created a separate parish in 1843. The Rev’d Smythe became Rector of Solihull in 1847 and served here until his death.

On 11 May 1941 a German Heinkel bomber crashed off Rumbush Lane having been shot down by an artillery battery at Wythall. It was one of 33 planes raiding Longbridge, but it mistook the railway line. The home guard was called out and found only one of the crew, badly burned, had survived. His silk parachute was much in demand to make into underclothes: one appeared on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow in 2013. A few years earlier an American researching the survivor spent two days in Earlswood, visiting the site and the village museum – which contains some relics of the aircraft.

Mrs Tonks is the custodian of the museum (founded in 1977) which has recently been enlarged next to the Village Hall (land for which was given in 1928 by Miss Warder of Earlswood Court). The Museum is open on the first Saturday of each month from March to September inclusive, 2.30 – 4.30pm.