Henry VIII owned Yardley and he gave it to Catherine of Aragon as a divorce settlement. And Catherine of Aragon’s got her own door into the church, St Edburgha’s. It’s on the Stechford side, and you’ll see the pomegranate of, of Spain and the rose of England on her personal door. Mmm. But on her death, it went, reverted back to the Crown.
What, what do you like about living in Yardley, then?
RJ: The heritage. It’s, it’s, when you think… it dates back to nine-seven-two, and when the monks from Pershore Abbey came and planted a cross in a glade, ‘cause Yardley was all woods, in, in the centre of the ground, and that’s where Yardley Church comes from. So, the building itself s, dates from the twelfth century
In the vestry of the church, at St Edburgha’s, they w, drew a curtain back, nobody had been there for years, and there was five bo, boxes of glass slides. And, they were Canon Cochrane, he was, the Vicar of Yardley from twenty-three to forty-seven, and his family owned a, door company. And he travelled round, taking the photographs for the brochures, with them. So, he went to America, Canada, Sou, South America, on the royal visits, and erm… he went, them, I’ve got some pictures of, I’ve copied off the glass, from the Holy Land, in 1895, in service, on Calvary. These were all on glass which I st, literally copied everything, the photographs he took were on glass plates. They were in these long wooden boxes.
They travelled, from, Middle East, by land, sea and then by rail to Sn, Birma, old Birmingham Snow Hill station. They went, they’d taken off there, and taken to developers in blu, ber, Bull Street, and not one was broken, it was just marked, ‘Glass, Great Western Railway’, on the box. And none were br, nothing was broken.
