River Cole, West Midlands
The River Cole is a 25 miles (40 km) river in the English Midlands. It rises on the lower slopes of Forhill, one of the south-western ramparts of the Birmingham Plateau, at Red Hill and flows south before flowing largely north-east across the plateau to enter the River Blythe below Coleshill, near Ladywalk, shortly before the Blythe meets the Tame. This then joins the Trent,
whose waters reach the North Sea via the Humber Estuary.
Its source is very near the main watershed of Midland England : tributaries are few and very short except in the lower reaches, so the Cole is only a small stream.
Average gradient of the central reaches is 10 1/2 feet in a mile. There is a fast run-off from the drift covered Keuper marl clay which makes up its catchment area, and heavy rain produces sudden floods; in the absence of replenishing side-streams these subside as quickly as they rise. The Cole is normally shallow, except where weirs maintain an artificial depth.
A southern tributary rises in fields at Hob Hill, its course runs through farm land and is then joined in the vicinity of the aptly named Watery Lane by a northern tributary which rises in Redhill and crosses Kings Norton golf club. The combined river then is bridged by the A435, Alcester Road by the Horse and Jockey Public House from where it crosses fields to the east of Wythall before passing under an aqueduct for the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal on Peterbrook Road at Major’s Green. Skirting to the west of Shirley and passing the site and former mill pond of Bache Mill, it is joined on its eastern bank by the Shirley Brook which forms the boundary between Birmingham and Solihull.
Crossing Slade Lane at a ford, the ‘slade’ is the Cole’s black silted boggy valley, it begins a journey through the seven kilometres, between Yardley Wood and Small Heath of the Shire Country Park. Firstly passing through Scribers Lane SINC (Site of Nature Conservation Interest), a diverse site with mixed broadleaf woodland containing wet flushes and ditches, a disused millrace and a wetland scrape.
Over the past few years there have been reports of Eurasian otter, water vole and water rail in this area. It runs along the River to the Scribers Lane Ford. A leat also carries water to the mill race and former mill pond of Tritterford Mill. It is bridged at Highfield Road by what was formally Titterford wain bridge built in the early 19th century but now replaced by a new bridge by which Highfield Road sweeps across the river and up the hill to Christ Church. Due to the construction of the mill pool, Chinn Brook had to be diverted far into the Dingles, flowing at a lesser gradient than the river, until it could join the Cole at the same level. The river then flows through the Dingles where towards Brook Lane is Four Arches Bridge. First recorded in 1822, it formerly linked Webb and Old Brook Lanes.
The wain ford alongside and the side approached have disappeared. When the North Warwickshire Line was being built between 1906/7, its embankment cut off both Webb Lane and Robin Hood Lane and to avoid the cost of two bridges so close together, a single span was placed centrally and the lanes diverted to it. Both fords then went out of use. For two decades the Four Arches Bridge continued to be used, but then Cole Valley Road was built up and thenceforward the bridge led nowhere, and it was allowed to fall into ruin until only the arch courses and piers remained. A local campaign succeeded in achieving its handsome restoration. The race to Sarehole Mill formerly went under Brook Lane in a culvert, but this has been blocked and the line of the race is lost to northward.
The spillway from race to river is seen to be still there, and the slots for the removable plank weir can be seen.[2] The riverside walk continues as the John Morris Jones Walkway past the site of Robin Hood Lane ford, across Cotterills Meadow which has been Colebank Playing Field for the last ninety years until it reaches the Grade II Listed water mill, Sarehole Mill at Hall Green.[6] The Coldbath Brook, a tributary of the Cole, drives the mill which is now a museum and one of the inspirations for J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The Shire Country Park ranger office is located at Sarehole Mill.
