William Dargue - A History of Birmingham Places & Placenames . . .  from A to Y

Raddlebarn/ Raddle Barn

B29 - Grid reference SP049820

Use the grid reference on the Ordnance Survey website - Get-a-map. 

Rattlebarn: first record 1789

From the 16th century the word raddle was used with reference to fence making. A raddle is a hurdle, woven with interwined laths like wattle. Perhaps the name here described a timber-framed barn with the walls filled in this way. The word was also used to signify something reddish in colour. It was used of a natural mineral substance found in clay called red ochre. After washing out the sand content a dye could be made from red ochre which had many uses including marking sheep and dyeing wool.

Raddlebarn is close to Stirchley and not far from Kings Norton, an important wool centre during the Middle Ages. Variations of raddle can be found in minor placenames and may indicate the location of a clay pit where was dug to extract the mineral.

Rattlebarn is shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map but had gone by 1895 when the area was beginning to be built up from Bournbrook in the west and from Selly Park in the east. The name is still in use as streetnames: Raddlebarn Road and Raddlebarn Farm Road.

William Dargue 14.03.09

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