Leach Green, Leach Heath

St James RC School, Leach Heath Lane; the Lickey Hills in the background.

The location of Leach Heath in Rednal is at the junction of Leach Heath Lane and Leach Green Lane.

The origin of the names is uncertain. While Leach may derive from a family name, there is an Old English word lacu, Middle English lache or leche, which means a 'stream'. This may refer to Callow Brook, a tributary of the River Rea, or to a small tributary of Callow Brook which runs down from the golf course on the Lickey Hills.

There were a number of quarries in this area extracting the Silurian sandstone which forms part of the Lickey Hills: two at the north-east end of Leach Heath Lane, another on Cock Hill Lane on Rubery Hill. The last quarry closed in 1963.

On Rednal Hill off Leach Green Lane is St Mary's Retreat. Also known as the Oratory House it was built at the instigation of Cardinal Newman as a retreat and burial ground for the Oratorian fathers. The house was built in 1854 with a small chapel whose cemetery was put to use the following year. Newman himself was buried here in 1890 with the epitaph, Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem, 'From shadows and apparitions to the truth', a phrase from Plato's 'Republic' which had been adopted by Christian writers. The house is regularly open to the public.

Immediately behind the Retreat was the home of the local postman, Fern Cottage. It was here that Fr Francis Morgan of the Oratory arranged for the ailing Mabel Tolkien to stay with her two sons. JRR Tolkien was then eleven years old. After her death in 1904 the Tolkien brothers continued to visit the Retreat with Fr Francis. The woods behind the house and the Lickey Hills made a great impression on the young J R R Tolkien and Rednal was later recreated as the elvish village of Rivendell in 'The Lord of the Rings'.