Shard End

This post-war housing estate has an Anglo-Saxon name. Its earliest recorded form, atte Sherd derives from atte 'at the' sceard meaning 'the gap', but it is difficult to envisage now what this meant twelve centuries ago - gap in the woodland perhaps? The second element of the name originates in the fact that this was the Shard End of the manor of Castle Bromwich from before the Norman Conquest.
This was a rural area on the fringes of the city when Birmingham took It over in 1931 with plans to build houses for residents displaced by extensive inner-city slum clearances.
However, it was not until after World War 2 that this became the city's largest municipal development with nearly four thousand houses built eastwards from Hodge Hill Common between the Coleshill Road, Bradford Road, Chester Road and the River Cole.
A village centre was created around Shard End Crescent with shops, library, a public house and a church. This was been rebuilt in 2011 and remains an important focus for the district. The estate was spaciously laid out. After World War 1 the Midland Sand & Gravel Company had worked a gravel pit off Packington Avenue. After the the Second World War, the area was landscaped and laid out as Norman Chamberlain Playing Fields. The gravel pit filled with water from a natural spring to form Shard End Lake. There is fishing here and a base for the local Sea Cadets.