Description:Home 10 was not one of the initial homes built in the Shenley Fields Cottage Homes complex. It was built a few years later – probably one of the two homes built in 1905 – one for 28 children, and one for 20. It is probable that the home for 28 children was The Trees leaving the home for 20 built in 1905 as Home 10. Earlier homes were all designed to house 24 children.
Home 10 was built opposite the probationary home and next door to Home 9 (The Trees).
Home 10 was a home for boys initially and continued to be so until it closed. In 1948, 22 boys were in residence aged between 5 and 11.
In the 1920s, Mrs Waygood was housemother. All the homes tended to have single women as housemothers in the early days of the cottage homes. A ‘relief housemother’ was also appointed who would take over the homes in turn giving each housemother an afternoon off.
In 1949, Home 10 took on the name Ryedale perhaps named after the district of Ryedale in North Yorkshire.
In the 1950s, the houseparents were Mr and Mrs Judson. From 1958 to 1960, Clarence and Eleanor Cooper were the houseparents of Ryedale with Frances Merryman as their assistant. At this stage the boys slept in two dormitories and everyone shared the same bathroom. Central heating was installed in 1960. At this stage, the home catered for 14 boys ranging in age from 10 to 16.
In the 1960s, Mr and Mrs Stephenson were the houseparents. It was during this time that Ryedale became independent of the Shenley Cottage Homes and, as with all the other homes, took responsibility for its own placements and its own purchasing of food and children’s clothes. The Hopwoods followed as houseparents in the 1970s.
Ryedale was unusual in that remained a home solely for boys. While most of the homes (with the exception of the nursery and the probationary home) started single sex, they became mixed in the 1930s or 1940s. The other homes that remained as boys homes in the late 1940s (Lilac View, Melplash and the Trees) all became mixed in later years. Ryedale was the exception. In 1981, of the 61 family and community homes in Birmingham Social Services, only Ryedale and three others were single sex. It became known as the Ryedale Boys’ Unit and remained single sex until it closed.
In 1980, the number of beds was reduced from 14 to 12. Ryedale closed in 1982 at a time when several children’s homes closed as Social Services policy changed to put more emphasis on fostering to reduce the numbers of children in residential care.
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Image: Boys playing in the grounds of Shenley Fields Cottage Homes c.1950.
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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.