Middleton Hall Road Children's Home, Northfield

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Date:1967 - 1996 (c.)

Description:The children's home on Middleton Hall Road was in a detached house which the Council bought in 1966. It was adapted to accommodate 14 children.

The house, built in 1901, was a large, and rather grand building built in red brick with some black timbers to the front wall. It had two sets of large chimneys and a large garden. The children's bedrooms were on the first and second floors.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time when increasing numbers of children were being brought into care and the City Council had to buy several new buildings to use as children's homes to accommodate the increasing number of children in residential care.

When Middleton Hall Road Children's Home opened, Mr and Mrs Godfrey moved in as the houseparents bringing together with all the children who lived with them at Bridgeburn Road which they managed previously.

How one former member of staff remembers the home:
"Middleton Hall Road was a very, very nice house, a former Cadbury mansion. And they gifted it to the social services department, I don’t know when. So it was a very nice Victorian house, with large rooms with fireplaces, wood panelling and this stained glass and it was very, well a very posh house. There were eight children living there."

In the 1980s, the home had a complement of 14 beds and accommodated both boys and girls.

It was still functioning as a children’s home in 1995, but it is unclear precisely what date it closed. It was certainly not a children’s home in 1999 as it was sold in a private sale in January of that year.

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Image: Judy the dog pictured in the 1960s in the back garden - the house is in the background. Judy was owned by Mr and Mrs Godfrey who were resident houseparents until 1973.

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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.