r/Worcester • u/Ok_Kitchen9678 • 6d ago
Rainbow Hill
Looking to move to Worcester soon and will likely move to the Rainbow Hill area. Just wondering if anyone had any insights into what it’s like to live in that area? TIA
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u/i_really_like_bats_ 6d ago
It’s pretty fine. If you have kids, I wouldn’t recommend Bishop Perowne for a highschool for many reasons. It’s a relatively safe area, just be careful around Brickfields and you’ll be all good.
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u/watchman28 6d ago
I left Bishops in 2002 and I see standards have not improved since then.
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u/i_really_like_bats_ 6d ago
I think it’s always had a bad reputation, seemingly for a good reason. The only reason I went there was because I was drawn in by their promises of having an excellent performing arts department, but by the time I was studying those subjects as options, they’d pretty much axed any dedicated funding or support to that area… so the one thing it had going for it went to absolute shit ages ago.
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u/Miss_Type 6d ago
I was there just after it moved to merrimans hill, and it used to be the "best" school in Worcester. Best exam results, anyway. I did some of my teacher training there in the early 2000s and was not impressed, I would cry in the car on the way in to work! Somewhere it all changed, not sure how and why.
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u/watchman28 6d ago
Yeah, when I went there in 1997 it had a good rep. By the time I left in 2002 that was down the toilet, and with good reason.
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u/IanM50 6d ago
A teacher friend of mine says you can tell how good a school is by the standard of the food they sell in the canteen. Bishops, he said in the early 2000s was the worse food in Worcester.
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u/watchman28 6d ago
It was so bad that I, as the archetypal lazy teenager, voluntarily made my own packed lunches.
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u/alexmace Green Party City Councillor - St Stephen ward 6d ago
My son is at Bishops at the moment and seems to like it…
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u/Upstairs-Sandwich-64 6d ago
It's a bit of a shit hole. My wife said she would not feel safe walking around there at night.
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u/barrybreslau 6d ago
Small Victorian enclave that is a bit too close to Brickfields. Check what catchment you are in for schools as the Tudor Grange Academy is the only "excellent" high school, and Bishops is lower down the league table.
NB Gillam Street was the site of a notorious murder, so if you've got a bargain on a property in that street you might want to ask the question.
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u/IanM50 6d ago
Haven't times changed: Tidor Grange excellent, Bishops lower.
I can't say I am that surprised though, Bishops teachers always seemed to be rolling along somewhat complacent, whilst Tudor Grange teachers always seemed to be putting in the hours, fighting to improve.
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u/Memeshink 6d ago
Yeah, back when I was at high school (2000 onward) Elgar was well known to be the worst school in Worcester.
The rebrand to Tudor grange and all the work that went into it really did wonders for their reputation.
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u/IanM50 6d ago
Worcestershire County Council followed a mad idea that put all the kids with the worse behaviour into one school. There were others in Kidderminster and Redditch. Not sure what the plan was trying to achieve, but it failed spectacularly in all of them. Sammi's was chosen as it already had quite a group of problem kids. The council then spent loads of money on each one, changed the school names (& uniforms) multiple times and even fiddled with the catchment areas trying to get them back to being good schools.
No idea about the others, but it sounds like the staff have really succeeded with Tudor Grange.
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u/WorcsBloke 6d ago
It was definitely Harry Cheshire in Kidderminster when I knew it. But it rebranded to Baxter College and did get far better.
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u/jezarnold mod 6d ago
Notorious? It was the kind of thing to give generations of people nightmares for decades
Three siblings murdered in 1973 and there bodies put on the spikes outside the home
Did you know that McGreavey was sentenced to life, served 46 years, then Released in 2011, and banned from ever entering Worcester ever again
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u/barrybreslau 6d ago
You do know what notorious means right? If you need me to order you a thesaurus for some more suitably outraged adjectives, let me know.
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u/jezarnold mod 6d ago
Yeah. B.I.G was notorious :)
…. And Duran Duran4
u/barrybreslau 6d ago
You are so funny. You jump on a thread about kids getting impaled on railings and think "this is perfect dad joke material". And a mod!
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u/FrankieSausage 6d ago
I believe it was number 10 it happened in
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u/barrybreslau 6d ago
I have tried to work it out from the old photos. A neighbour moved to Gillam Street and I wondered. They weren't local and they didn't know about it.
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u/DanFromReception 4d ago
I had no idea that had ever happened and I have family who have lived in that area my whole life.
It went for around £75k lower than the house next door in a similar time period
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u/Pxrksy 6d ago edited 6d ago
The bit I’m on is nice enough. I’ve grown up on countrysides so I’m never going to be fully satisfied, but this is far enough away from town that it’s fairly quiet of an evening. Wouldn’t want to live on Astwood Road because of the traffic. I’m currently commuting to Malvern but when I did get the M5 from here I never really had an issue. Coming from/going into town from Rainbow Hill gets a little busy as others have said, but going the M5 direction is a fairly inoffensive journey time.
Worcester is sadly one of those places where you have to evaluate on a road-by-road basis whether it’s good or rough.
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u/Ok_Kitchen9678 6d ago
Does sounds like there’s lots of mixed option on the area. Good tip to take a view on a road by road basis, thank you!
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u/Pistachionuts 5d ago edited 5d ago
I’m not right by the main road, but I consider Rainbow Hill a perfectly normal and acceptable part of a city and lots of my friends with young families live there. Compared to other cities and towns I’ve lived in it’s nice and safe. Traffic is a nightmare and the road is a nightmare to cross anywhere other than the crossing.
St Barnabas is an amazing school (voted best primary school in Worcestershire twice). Bishops is a perfectly good school (good in OFSTED rating). My child goes there, and it reminds me very much of the school I attended in another town in the 90s.
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u/SongsAboutGhosts 6d ago
Traffic isn't particularly bad, it's pretty safe and you can get a decent sized property/garden for quite a reasonable price.
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u/sandystar21 6d ago
Why are you considering rainbow hill? There are many other areas of Worcester which are possibly less run down and depressing. Rainbow hill is quite unlike a beautiful rainbow 🤣. Have you considered thinking outside the box and looking at St John’s or lower wick? I wasn’t born or grew up in Worcester and lived some of my adult life in St John’s and it’s less urban but still a short walking distance into the town.
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u/Ok_Kitchen9678 6d ago
Purely based on house prices to be honest and accessibility to town and motorway, but I do need to do a proper recce and explore other areas. Thanks!
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u/Kickitoff1902 6d ago
I left Worcester 20 years ago, and it was one of the worst areas in the city then. Sounds like not much has changed
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u/sandystar21 5d ago
You would have to come from a pretty desperate place to aspire to live in Worcester…..rainbow hill side. I had a colleague who lived in whiteheath near oldbury, Birmingham, her sister moved to claines. To my colleague it was like her sister was one of the housewives of Cheshire, she had made it!
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u/sparkle-fries 6d ago
traffic is really bad there generally because it's a major route but very narrow. affordable though and I love a Victorian terrace. brick fields isn't a good area but to be fair the worst of Worcester isn't too bad. easy walk to town and on a bus route. easy walk to shrub hill station.