Description:Home 2, or Rose Cottage as it was occasionally known, was one of the homes within Shenley Fields Cottage Homes.
When they were built by the Kings Norton Union, the Cottage Homes aimed to accommodate orphaned, abandoned or destitute children who would otherwise have ended up in the workhouse.
Home 2, on the same side of the Drive as the Lodge, was initially a home for boys. This changed after the building of the two new homes in 1905, as all the homes on that side of the Drive were changed into homes for girls.
In 1938 Miss Longman started work at Home 2 and became housemother in approximately 1944. At that time, the home had about 16 children but this increased to 24 during the war.
Preceding Miss Longman as housemother was Miss Bennett and before her, Miss Hawkins.
By 1937 at the latest, the Home was taking in both boys and girls. In 1948, the home usually had 22 children in residence – 6 boys aged under 6 and 16 girls aged between 3 and 15.
In 1949, Home 2 was given the new name of Suncrest. In fact, all the original Cottage Homes at Shenley Fields did have names when they were built although they were known by their numbers.
“All the Homes bear a name such as Jasmine Cottage, set up high on the walls well above the normal range of a child’s eye. The names all include the word ‘Cottage’ … and the children have never used the name of their house when we asked them where they live. Instead they have replied ‘Home 1’ or ‘Home 2’ as the case may be.”
(Children’s Committee 1949)
Before the change of name to ‘Suncrest’, Home 2, however, is occasionally referred to in the Children’s Committee minutes as Rose Cottage - none of the other homes were referred to by their original names.
Miss Longman stayed at Suncrest until 1967. Before she left she received the British Empire Medal, in the New Year's Honours of 1967, for her work as housemother of Suncrest.
The other change of 1967 was that Suncrest became a nursery reception unit with beds for 10 children.
An edited extract of an oral history interview with someone who worked at Suncrest from 1997 until 1980:
"It was a two-storey big old house, fire escape around the outside. There were just the two floors and there was the Officer in Charge’s big sitting room at the front and that was her room that she lived in. And the playroom was on the left and the dining room and the kitchen was on the right and there was a big bathroom downstairs. And then when you went upstairs there were several, I think there was about four or five children in a room and then a room where the babies were, where there’d be cots. If you’d got brothers and sisters you usually put them together, so you‘d move the cot so that they would be sleeping together. When I lived in there was a room that was a staffroom that we used and a staff bathroom upstairs. And they were all the same - big detached houses with a bit of garden.
"I started there in 1997 as a nursery nurse, We were in the middle of the drive and there was a nursery school opposite. I didn’t live in when I first started, but then I did live in for a while towards the end of my time there.
"We had ten children at a time, from 0 to about six. We had some babies straight from the maternity hospital.
Quite a few of them were long term and there were some that were adopted from us. Some went home again.
"There were night staff that would come in at ten o’clock and then they’d leave at seven in the morning when the day staff would take over. But there’d always be a member of the day staff would sleep in as well. We used to do shifts, so you’d do seven ‘til three, two ‘til ten, that sort of shift. So you’d get the children up, give them breakfast. There was a dining room where we used to eat together so you would sit with your group of three. And then you’d take them to nursery or school or there was a big playroom and you’d have activities in the playroom for the younger children. All have lunch together then they might have naps. The children would come back from nursery, some of them did mornings, some did afternoons, some did all day. And then you’d collect the children from school, tea, activities in the evening and then you’d bath them and put them in bed before the night nurse used to come in."
In 1981, the nursery was closed and the building was used for offices.
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Image: Plan of Shenley Fields in 1938. Reproduced courtesy of Birmingham City Council.
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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.