Description:Ravenshurst was initially a home for girls only and was next to the Superintendent’s house on the left hand side of The Gardens.
An extract from an oral history interview with someone who lived in Home 10 in the 1930s:
"Mr Perks was the gate man, he was the frightener, he was huge but he was alright really. He used to make sure we crossed the road to go to school and we used to have these runners to make sure we went to school - the bigger boys. Mr Perks was the man that used to let us out and be there when we came back from school.
"Erdington Cottage Homes was railed. It was like our own little world. You couldn’t get out and at the front there were the huge gates where the lorries used to come through to bring store. At the side there was a little entrance to go to mother and father Lee’s place - the Lodge.
"I always knew it as Erdington Cottage Homes and I used to have ‘ECH’ on my cap and on my blazer and on my coat and on my knickers. The uniform was blue and grey.
"My dad visited every visiting day – once every three months. My brother was in home 9 but I didn’t even know I’d got a sister or a brother. I only met my sister when I came out.
"We used to have to get up very early. I used to have to take out the two slop buckets and I used to have to go in the Mother’s bedroom and the Miss’s bedroom to get theirs. And one was to wash and one was to empty and I would have to go around the dorms and collect them. And then you cleaned your teeth with salt, you didn’t have any toothpaste.
"Most of us were like orphans, but I had got my dad. I used to have Christmas presents but you didn’t keep all your presents which I can understand. Sometimes you’d get your apple, your orange, your bar of chocolate or something like that which they would put in a stocking and that would be it. And then, when your visitors came, you’d have your presents but you couldn’t keep everything, you had to share. Which thinking about it was a good thing because some poor little devils didn’t have anything.
"When you came out it was a different world. I thought everyone knew everyone else. You see I knew most of the people in the Homes by looks. But when you go outside those walls, those railings, it’s a different world altogether. It was a mighty big world."
By 1948, Home 10 had become mixed and had accommodation for 16 boys and girls. In 1949, it was given the name Ravenshurst. The number of beds increased to 12 by the 1960s.
In 1967 Ravenshurst was converted from a children’s home into a residential training facility for childcare staff.
In June 1979 it reverted back to being a children's home - an emergency reception unit providing facilities for those children who were brought into care as a matter of urgency, replacing the Lindens. After a short stay in Ravenshurst, they would be allocated a more permanent place to stay, be it in a children’s home, with a foster family or some other arrangement. It had eight beds and could accommodate both boys and girls.
Ravenshurst closed by 1982.
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Image: The plaque commemmorating the opening of Aston Union Cottage Homes in 1900. Photograph taken in the late 1990s. The plaque has since been plastered over. Image reproduced with the kind permission of Mike Beard.
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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.