Rubery

Rubery Bypass looking north-east. Frankley Beeches can be seen on the left, Cock Hill/ Rednal Hill is right of centre. Rubery is to the right of the picture.

The settlement is first documented as Robery named from the 'rough hill(s)'; the name derives from the Old English ruh beorg. Rubery Hill is part of the Lickey Hills with Rednal Hill and Beacon Hill to the south.

To the east of Leach Green Lane Rubery Cutting is a designated Local Nature Reserve where exposed rock of the Rubery Sandstone Series can be seen. The site whose importance has been recognised for its early Silurian geology is home to a wide range of fossils including corals, brachiopods, trilobites and graptolites. See also Leach Green.

Rubery east of Callowbrook Lane and Newman Way became part of Birmingham with Northfield in 1911; the western part remained in Worcestershire. The Birmingham side was developed for municipal housing soon after the Second World War.

Off the Bristol Road South at Cock Hill Lane, Rubery Hill Hospital was formerly a lunatic asylum. It was built because Birmingham's Borough Asylum (now All Saints Hospital) at Winson Green was unable cope with an increasing number of patients some of whom came from outside the borough. Still surviving are the Medical Superintendent's House of 1879, the entrance lodge (now a private house) and the early-English-style chapel of 1882 by Martin & Chamberlain All have 20th-century alterations and additions, but remain substantially Victorian and are Grade II Listed buildings.

See also Rednal.

Right: Rubery Hill Hospital water tower © Copyright Andrew Clayton and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Geograph OS reference SP0078. See Acknowledgements for a link to Geograph.