Description:Longmeadow Crescent was a purpose-built children's home designed as a ‘family group home’ on the newly-built Shard End Estate.
The home was part of a programme of new children’s homes, each built on newly developing housing estates, which were to be small family homes – a move away from the pre-Second World War larger children’s homes. These homes were designed to be a small ‘family’ unit in a house that looked very much like any other on the estate. The first of these homes was completed in 1951, and a further 11, one of which was Longmeadow Crescent in 1962, were built over the following eleven years. A second children’s home was built on the same estate at the same time – on Packington Avenue.
Both homes were designed to accommodate eight children and were designed so that houseparents (generally a married couple) would live in the children’s home, with, if they had any, their own children.
The home continued to accommodate eight children, both boys and girls, until it closed at the end of 1985.
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Image: The building in 2010. Photograph 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.