William Dargue A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames from A to Y
Redhall/ Red Hall
B32 - Grid reference SP012852
Radewall: first record 1291
On Quinton Lane, formerly known as Harborne Lane, is the site of Redhall Grange. The term grange originally meant a granary and derives via Middle English from the Latin word for 'grain'. A grange was a medieval farming estate run here by lay brothers of Halesowen Abbey. That abbey was founded as a Premonstratensian house in 1218 with an initial grant by King John of the manor of Hales. Further manors were subsequently added to its interests including that of Warley in 1337. At this point the manor Warley lay north of the Hagley Road, that of Harborne to the south; the grange and its farmlands must have been on the boundary of the two manors.
Lay brothers were often uneducated and therefore not suited to the life of a monk. Their role was to support the monks in practical ways to allow them to devote more time to study and to prayer.
Lay brothers often worked in the abbey kitchens, gardens or workshops. They also worked on granges which were usually situated within a day's walk of the mother abbey to enable the brothers to
attend Sunday services and to be present on holy days of obligation.
At the Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536-1541, all monastic lands were seized by Henry VIII and sold.
The name, Redhall may derive from red healh ie. 'red nook' possibly referring to the soil type. Redhall Farm, on Green Lane and probably the successor of the grange,
survived into after 1926 when its farmland was built over with housing.
See also Warley Woods.
William Dargue 14.03.2009/ 31.07.2010
For 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of Birmingham go to British History Online.
Map below reproduced from Andrew Rowbottom’s website of Old Ordnance Survey maps Popular Edition, Birmingham 1921. Click the map to link to that website.
