William Dargue A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames from A to Y
Kingsuch
B38 - Grid reference SP046788
Kingissyche: first record 1270
Within the royal manor of Kings Norton, Kingsuch Grange was originally one of twenty granges which belonged to Bordesley Abbey whose ruins can still be seen near Redditch. Deriving from the Latin granum meaning 'grain', a medieval grange was an outlying farming estate belonging to a monastery (or sometimes to a feudal lord) but run by lay brothers rather than by monks. Kingsuch was sold by the Crown in 1544 after the dissolution of the monasteries and subsequently passed through many different hands.
Located off Westhill Road where Kingshill Drive is now, it was first recorded in 1270 and was still a residence in 1865 belonging to Robert Mynors, a Birmingham surgeon. It is shown on the 1831
Ordnance Survey map and is named on 1895 edition as Newhouse Farm, perhaps having been rebuilt.
The name Kingsuch, which is no longer in use, may mean 'King's stream', the first element relating to Kings Norton, the second, sic (pronounced 'sitch') the Old English equivalent
of the Northern and Scottish dialect word 'sike/ syke'. This now means a small stream over flat marshy ground that may dry up in summer. In Middle English the term could
also mean the meadowland associated with the stream.
William Dargue 29.03.2009