Description:There are several parallels between this home and another children's home which was built on Reynoldstown Road. The two homes are very similar in structure, at least outwardly. Both were built in 1967 as part of the same phase of children’s home building.
The homes were part of a programme of new children’s homes, each built on newly developing housing estates, which were to be family group homes. These smaller homes were a move away from the larger children’s homes favoured in the first half of the twentieth century. The first of these homes was completed in 1951 and, in all, 12 were built in the 1950s and early 1960s. Bicknell Croft was part of a second phase of building family group homes which took place in the late 1960s.
These homes adhered to the same principle of a small ‘family’ unit in a house that looked very much like any other house, and had live-in house-parents. The number of beds in this second phase, however, was increased from eight to 12.
Bicknell Croft was a mixed home with both boys and girls, at least up to 1981. In 1989, it still had 12 beds.
It featured in a list of children’s homes thought to be about to close which was published in the Birmingham Evening Mail in 1999 but it is not known if it did indeed close at that time. Certainly, it was closed by 2003 when it was converted into private flats.
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Image: Publicity photograph taken for the Children's Committee, Birmingham City Council 1967. The Birmingham Children's Homes project has no photograph of Bicknell Croft children's home at this stage.
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Source: This history was compiled by the Birmingham Children's Homes Project, an initiative to explore Birmingham City Council-run children’s homes between 1949 and 1990.