Description:The Lodge was initially the home of the Cottage Homes porter and his wife. It also functioned as the receiving home for the Cottage Homes. The initial building was described as “a porter’s lodge and receiving ward to accommodate sixteen children”.
Reading the minutes of the overseeing committees of the times (Public Assistance Committee and Boards of Guardians), it is not easy to determine whether the receiving home function remained at the Lodge throughout the early 1900s or whether it moved onto Reservoir Road. Certainly, the Public Assistance Committee in 1909 had two houses and were intending to use them as a receiving home. Later minutes refer to Reservoir House (Receiving Home). At the latter, Mr and Mrs Lee, who were later foster parents at the Lodge, were foster parents.
Two former residents remember the Lodge:
"There was a cottage on the corner that you stayed at for a while, more or less to be assessed to see which cottage would be suitable for you to go in. And all the girls were on this side, and the boys were on this side and the nursery was over there and there was a big hall where all the visitors came.
[Alice (interviewed in 1986), resident of Erdington Cottage Homes in the 1930s].
"A little later we all got into a van, and about half an hour later, arrived at the very large ornate double gates in Fentham Road, which were the entrance to the Cottage Homes. Once the gates had been opened, we trooped out from the van and were ushered into the lodge. Once inside, the man who had opened the gates told us that we would be staying in the lodge for a few days, before being moved into a cottage. He was father Lee, and the lady who joined him was Mother Lee: we were to address her as Mother.
"At this point, Mrs Lee took over and we were all ushered into the bathroom and told to remove our clothes while she filled two baths with hot and cold water; in turn we were bathed. Then we were given the clothes of the Cottage Homes. We went into the dayroom and sat down at a long table and had a dinner of meat and mashed potatoes, followed by rice pudding. After the meal we were told to fold our arms on the table and to rest our heads and keep quiet. That was the ritual during the eight days that we stayed in the lodge. On the eighth day, Mrs Lee told me I was being moved to Cottage No. 16".
[Bob Mackenzie on moving into Erdington Cottage Homes in 1933, featured in the Birmingham Historian, issue 15].
In 1948, the Lodge was listed as having 20 children in residence – both boys and girls.
In 1949, it became known as Orchardside, as there was an orchard on the other side of the drive, directly opposite the Lodge.
By 1966, Orchardside was just another children’s home on the newly named ‘Gardens’ and became an independent children’s home along with all the other former cottage homes.
In 1979, Orchardside had 14 beds for children – both boys and girls. This reduced to 12 in the early 1980s. Shortly after this time, Orchardside moved to a former children's home in Castle Vale - a line of terraced houses knocked into one on Hyperion Road.
Orchardside closed in June 1986.
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Image: The building that was the Lodge photographed in 2010 with the kind permission of the current owners.
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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.
If you have any further information about this children's home or photographs of the building you would like to share with the project, please contact gudrun.limbrick@birmingham.gov.uk