Description:Flint Green was opened as a war-time nursery offering 24 hours care on 18th May 1942 (the same day as the Meadway). It initially had accommodation for 65 children.
It was a three storey terraced building on the corner of the Sherborne Road.
In 1950, its future was uncertain, as the building had been requisitioned by the Council for use as a nursery, and in 1950, the Secretary of State decreed that the use of all requisitioned buildings be terminated. However, it was felt that the need for Flint Green was so great that all efforts should be made to purchase the building and keep it as a nursery.
In 1950, it had accommodation for 25 children aged between 2 and 5. The age range was subsequently increased (in the early 1950s) to 0 to 5.
How one former resident remembers Flint Green - she went to Flint Green in around 1965 until 1973 when she was 8:
“From the outside it doesn’t look like it’s changed very much. There’s a big wooden fence around the garden part and there was a big lawn with a drive – it used to seem so long when I was little. There used to be like a little sun house at the side. And there’s an extension at the front and that’s where all the prams used to be for the babies. And then at the back there was a garden and like a courtyard and there was a bath in there and remember having a bath in there and being given cod liver oil.
“Inside, you went in and there was a wooden floor and a big spiral staircase. To the left there was the dining room. With big wooden tables and I remember we had the greeny - bluey type cups and saucers – I think they still have those in Social Services places. As you went past matron’s office there was a big massive room which led onto the back garden with a wooden floor. There would be parties there - I can remember doing the okey cokey. It wasn’t like going into someone’s front room where there would be two armchairs and a telly, it was just a big massive playroom. There was a telly there. I can remember my father coming in and I was reassuring him that I was ok in there. Upstairs at Flint Green just seemed to be a long passageway and it had bedrooms off it.”
Flint Green was closed as a residential nursery in 1980 as a first step in the planned phasing out of residential nurseries.
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Image: The building in 2010, taken 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.