Description:This children's home opened in 1967. It was in a purpose-built large house on the Bromford Bridge Estate very close to the M6 motorway.
It looked similar in design and style to the children's home on Bicknell Croft which also opened in 1967.
Reynoldstown Road children's home was part of a programme of new children’s homes, each built on newly developing housing estates in Birmingham, which were to be family group homes – a move away from the large children's homes which were favoured in the first half of the twentieth century.
The first 12 of these family group homes, or scattered homes, were built in the 1950s. Reynoldstown Road was part of a second phase of building family homes which took place in the late 1960s. These homes adhered to the same principle of a small ‘family’ unit in a house that looked much like any other on the estate. The number of beds, however, was increased from eight to twelve.
The home housed boys and girls on a long-term basis with live-in house–parents. In 1982, it was closed down, refurbished and opened again but with a change of emphasis. From this time, the children living in Reynoldstown Road all had learning disabilities and staff members no longer lived in.
Harry and Rose Farrell were the house-parents at this address from very early on (they were first registered as living at the address in the 1969 electoral roll) until 1982.
In 2004, the home closed and children and staff moved to a home in Aston formerly known as Jubilee House. In 2010, the building is still empty and now stands derelict despite protests from the neighbours.
Incidentally, the area that is now the Bromford Estate used to be a race course and some horses were given local names. One such horse, ‘Reynoldstown Road’, won the Grand National in 1935 and 1936. Continuing the link between the area and horse-racing, some of the newer roads on the estate are named after other racecourses and horses.
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Image: Reynoldstown Road Children's Home taken from Bromford Drive c. 1996. 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.