William Dargue  A History of BIRMINGHAM Places & Placenames from A to Y

This Sheldon placename means 'red fields', and was probably named from the red sand rather than from red clay which is widespread in this area. Also known as Radley Moor, the term moor was the local name for a a strip of boggy land which here lay along Platt Brook and has still never been built on. This may have been common grazing land in the Middle Ages and probably for a long time afterwards. The name is now recalled in the street name, The Radleys. A small busy local shopping centre dating from the 1930s thrives at the junction of Sheldon Heath Road and Church Road.

William Dargue 14.03.2009/ 15.07.2010

For 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of Birmingham go to British History Online.

See http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55141&sheetid=8831&ox=4350&oy=514&zm=2&czm=2&x=596&y=231.