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South Lodge is our name for the lodge that stood on Lightwoods Hill.  It was one of three lodges built for Warley Abbey (Warley Hall).  Two were probably built around 1820 when the Abbey was constructed as they were designed by the same architect, Robert Lugar.  A design for these lodges was included in one of Lugar’s sample books,  Villa Architecture: a Collection of Views, with Plans, of Buildings Executed in England, Scotland 1828. The third lodge was built after 1838 when Hubert Galton extended the estate, buying land from Lord Lyttleton of Hagley Hall, to take the boundary south to Hagley Road, then called Beeches Lane. 

The lodge buildings had many names over the years and so when you find out information about “a lodge”, it is often hard to tell which one is being referred to unless you have some other reference.  The inhabitants of each lodge would’ve changed with each change of tenant or owner of the Abbey and so their role on the estate might have differed.  This particular lodge was called The Gardener’s Lodge in 1881 when it was lived in by William Herne (gardener) his wife Jane and four children.

We know that in 1891 during Hugh Gilzean Reid’s tenancy at the Abbey, this lodge was home to the Rymer family, George, Rachel and their five children.  George Rymer arrived with Reid as his gardener but despite that being his role the building was no longer called Gardener’s Lodge but Warley Lane Lodge.  Warley Lane was a previous name for Lightwoods Hill.  George Rymer has been regarded as the originator of a dynasty of gardeners who went on to work throughout Birmingham parks. Three of his children worked at Warley Park, including his daughter Gertrude, and we are confident that one of them, Frederick Wathern Rymer, later became Park Superintendent at Warley Park in 1950 until his retirement in 1964.  This means he would have lived at this lodge and then in the Abbey in the 1950s, perhaps after his marriage, as he moved into the newly built 97 Lightwoods Hill when the Abbey was demolished in 1957.

There would have been some gates at the lodge entrance to the park when it was a private home and there are some early photographs of the public park era showing a wooden double gate.  We know that these were replaced in 1906 with cast iron gates as we have seen the quote received by Birmingham Parks Committee for their creation and we can see them in later images.  This style of gates were used as the model during the Community Trust’s restoration of Warley Woods in 2007; a pair of vehicle gates with a single pedestrian gate and distinctive finials.  

We have gathered small pieces of information from the Birmingham Parks Committee minutes, but these only give snapshots of the different uses of the building in the early 20th century.  It may have been used as a temporary police station in 1908, although it is the other lodge (on Abbey Road) which definitely was used by the parks police.  It may have been empty in 1912 when a Mr Belton asked (and was refused) permission to use it as a refreshment room.  It was occupied by a Worcestershire County Council employee, Miss Holloway, from 1918-1924 and then by Miss Morgan from 1924.  These women were “health visitors” and may have operated an infant welfare clinic in the building.

Oral history reports are rare but two that we have both suggest there was a well, spring, or stream at the lodge.  These came from people who lived on Lightwoods Hill as children.  The building seems famous for being damp because of this.

We have only recently discovered when it was demolished.  We had seen it on OS maps in 1914, but it was missing from parks department maps in 1951 and very few people sharing their memories of the park seemed to remember it.  Birmingham Parks Department minutes have revealed that it was demolished in 1933.  It had problems with its ceilings which would have meant a complete roof strip and this was deemed too costly.  The building did not have a role as a parks building and so the last tenant, a nurse, was given notice to quit and the demolition started.  

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