NOTES ON THE REA VALLEY. 
151 
tlie author’s view of the derivation of the name which our 
river bears. Under the head of “ Edgbaston,” he writes, “ The 
Tame is enlarged by a brook called Rhea, from the British 
word Rlie, rheawdr, or rlieag, as I conceive, which signifies 
to run or flow, and seemeth to have its origin from the 
Greek word peu, fluo ; which torrent hath its rise from the 
foot of the Lickey Hills in Worcestershire, whence, passing- 
on with a swift course, it enters this county here at Edg¬ 
baston, whereof I am next to take notice.” With regard to 
the name of the river, my conjecture is that the old ortho¬ 
graphy was that which Dugdale here employs, viz., Rhea, 
and that gradually the “h” was dropt in the spelling, as it was 
almost sure to be in the pronunciation, till about a century 
ago, when it was fixed in its present form. On the copy of a 
very old map, which I saw in the Edgbaston Estate Office, 
the name is spelt in both ways, which may indicate a tran¬ 
sition period. 
Adverting to Dugdale’s description of the river, we notice 
that if he seems in one place to write contemptuously of it 
as “a brook,” he makes ample amends further on by calling 
it “a torrent.” And both terms in the description are 
accurately applied, for the Rea is a mere brook in dimensions 
through its general course, and it does roll down as a torrent 
in time of flood. The swiftness of its course is also correctly 
described, and may be accounted for by the fact of its descent 
from the Lickey and Frankley Hills, which are elevated about 
800 feet above the sea. 
From careful investigation of the locality, and personal 
enquiries among old residents, I came to the conclusion that 
the Rea has its highest source in a spring which rises midway 
on one of the Lickey hills, popularly called “ The Shoulder 
of Mutton Hill,” approached by a narrow footpath through 
the cultivated fields of Wetty Farm. The water from the 
spring trickles down by the side of a hedge, disappears 
underground, accumulates by field drainage, emerges in its 
descent towards Rubery, flowing through the village parallel 
with the Bromsgrove Road, and then round by the Lunatic 
Asylum, till it is joined midway between Rubery and Long- 
Bridge by a babbling tributary. This takes its rise at the 
foot of a field descending from Frankley Beeches, flowing 
through a deep, narrow, shrub-entangled dingle ; receiving 
on its right bank the waters discharged from a drain-pipe, 
passing in a tortuous course through woods, and then by the 
railway, till it joins the Rea. After this junction the Rea 
flows on as a conspicuous stream beneath Long Bridge, 
through Northfiehl, King’s Norton, and Lifford, receiving at 
