Description:This building was initially known as the infirmary and was very much like a small hospital built in the grounds of the cottage homes. It was one of the first buildings opened on the Cottage Homes site and was an essential part of the plan to make the Cottage Homes self-contained. With both a school and medical care on site, children would have no need to leave.
As the infirmary serving all the Shenley Fields Cottage Homes, the building was frequently occupied by children who had infectious diseases. Their time in the infirmary was not only meant to give them the medical attention they needed but also to prevent the spread of their disease to the other children in their home.
As was thought beneficial at the time, part of the infirmary was open air so that children could feel the benefits of fresh air day and night.
In 1949, the infirmary became a home for children with disabilities. It was however, still used as a Sick Bay as well. While children in the cottage homes now left to go to local hospitals if they needed to, visits to the doctor and routine medical checks still took place in the Sick Bay.
By 1979, Pinewood was a home for children with physical disabilities and had the capacity for 11 children - boys and girls.
In 1987 Pinewood was the last home to close of all those which had originally been a part of Shenley Fields Cottage Homes. A children's home in Kings Norton was built to replace it – a building with three separate but linked units providing 16 beds. There was a gap between the closing of Pinewood and the opening of the new home which meant that, for a short time, children from Pinewood stayed in a wing of Prospect Hall which usually only accommodated adults. The move to Prospect Hall took place in October 1986.
The Shenley Fields Cottage Homes were demolished in the early 1990s and the whole area has been redeveloped for housing. Two of the newly created cul-de-sacs have names commemorating the cottage homes – one is Greenways and the other is Pinewoods.
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Image: the road known as 'Pinewoods' off the newly developed Shenley Fields Drive where the cottage homes once stood. Photograph taken in 2010 by Gudrun Limbrick.
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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.