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Sanitorium Yardley Rd.

S

Stabilator

Guest
Anyone ever hear of a Yardley Rd. Sanitorium in Birmingham? I wonder if any employment records exist for 1918? Thanks
 
Hi Stabilator,
I wonder if you mean Yardley Greeen Road sanatorium ? I remember it as a child, and am told that my grandfather was admitted there often, to deal with his TB problems - I believe all or most of the inmates were TB patients. I don't know about the early 1900s, but when I was a girl it was linked to the East Birmingham Hospital, a general hospital, on Bordesley Green East -now called Heartlands & Solihull Hospital Trust. The rear of the East Birmingham Hosp backed onto Yardley Green Road, so it was in fact just over the road from the sanatorium. I think the Yardley Green Road section became an elderly services/geriatric unit later on, and I'm sure it has been closed down for many years. I'd be surprised if any of the employment records are still around.

I guess this doesn't help you much, but it's maybe a little bit to go on,
sorry I can't help more just now :blush:


Millie
 
Around the time you are enquiring about, the hospital was known as Little Bromwich hopital Yardley Green rd.
 
" The San " as it was locally known was indeed in Yardley Green Rd.
 
I'm pretty sure it was also known as The Fever Hospital, I was in there when I was four years old for 17 weeks suffering from diptheria, the photo is how I remember it after all these years, we were wheeled out in our beds which had scarlet blankets under those glass verandahs. It was an "Isolation" hospital, when my parents visited they had to wear gowns and masks. This would be about 1942/43.
 
I was in there with phnu ,phumo ,er newmon
a very very very bad cold during the early 50s. The verandahs faced on to Hobmoor rd. I think it went on to become a tropical deceise centre.
 
Hi,

My Mom spent months in the fever hospital in Little Bromwich .. she had Diptheria (not once but twice) , she remembers her Dad was not allowed to see her other than strict visiting times and he used to sneak in the grounds and pass her sweeties and treats through the window.

The first time she was admitted , they cut all her hair short (she had lovely auburn curly hair) . it was meant to help reduce her "temperature"??! , she eventually recovered from Diptheria and on her "discharge" she had to pass through a final examination.. her temperature was "up" so she was re-admitted for another couple of weeks.. the second time she was admitted she was very ill but she also had pleurisy , she spent nearly 12 months in there the second time around.
 
Oh how we remember that place, my wife contracted TB in 1971, well she must of had it a long time before that, as every month,we would when she had as it was in days gone by her coarse, s spend in the general hospital.
Not a lot they could do get married have a child that will sort you it was said but all along it was,nt she had TB in a not nice part of her body at the time married 6 weeks and she was in Yardley grn for 3 months.
i would say Birmingham library you could find out what you,re looking for or has been said nhs archives,i,m sure you,ll find the info.
best of luck dereklcg
 
Hi

Well covered again. My sister spent several weeks in the
complex. She had chicken Pox and developed appedicitus.
Only place was this complex.
I was in the 12th Boy's Brigade and one our lads got very
ill. We were allowed to Parade around the sanitorium area.
I can still see him waving to us. sadly he was dead in a couple
of weeks.
Close by was Alson Road School where I went to. We played
on Belchers Lane Sports field. It had a huge view of the
complex.
Later on the whole site became Heartlands Hospital.
I spend a fair ammount of time there now.

Mike Jenks
 
The Yardley Green Road Sanatorium became a geriatric hospital named Arden Lodge. Now it is being re-landscaped for it's new use - a high-security mental hospital.
 
Here is another picture of Yardley Green Sanatorium from that gem of a book Old Small Heath by John Bick. Similar day beds but made of metal were used on the Davos Switzerland sanatorium balconies around 1960.
 
My husband's mum worked at Arden Lodge as a secretary to one of the consultants in the 1970's and 80's. We went to the Summer Fetes they had. The grounds were very peaceful and green.
 
Re Sanitorium in Yardley Road.
I had diptheria in 1938, and spent approx. 8 months in Little Bromwich Fever Hospital, with heart complications,(endo carditis), was told to not exert myself unduly, indeed I proved the Doctors diagnosis was not absolutely on the ball!, as I am now 78 years old and still going strong!, although I did not know it at the time quite a lot of children in the same ward died, so I realize how lucky I was.
Barney Martin
 
Hi

Well done Barney. Amazing escape one of your nine
lives spent there.
After all those years I can still feel that cold dull day
in 1956 when the Boy's Brigade of the 12th Batallion
marched around outside those wards and stood to attention
outside our friends ward. He died unfortunately.
Not the happiest day of my life.
In fact claim to fame Alton Douglas the guy who
puts out those books on picture history has a photo
of the Brigade in Belchers Lane Small Heath around 1955.

Mike Jenks
 
Thanks for the reply Mike,
Incidentally I was in the 10th B.B. Co. at Moseley Road Methodist Church from 1944 to 1948, ( very happy memories!)
I did not do P.T. or play football because of my medical history, but passed A1 for my National service!!, in the Royal Signals as a Radio Operator, and enjoyed a year in Hong Kong! (coutesy of King George V1),
and now still helping to renovate a 1929 G.W.R. railway coach on the Severn Valley Railway at Bewdley.
Regards,
Barney Martin
 
Hi

now we have found the Severn Valley Railway.
Spent years up and down on it with my Family.
Suggest you write to the Severn Valley Railway
section on your exploits.
The Carriage repair site is at Kidderminster.
Must loook you up when I next vist. That will
be in the Spring time.

Mike Jenks
 
Hi Patty nice pics of your Mom,
she looked well for not a very nice place, remember it
all to well. as you have seen just back a bit on this thread.
regards Derek
 
I remember Yardley Green hospital quite well.

I was a child patient for almost 18 months in Yardley Green Hospital, in ward G (side ward) during 1962/63. A few of the nurses I remember are Nurse Wright, Green, and staff nurse Donaghue. My doctor was a silver-haired Scotsman named Dr Ross. We had a teacher who would come to the ward for our schooling.

It was a 6-bed ward for children, adjoining the womens ward, but in the time I spent there I met and made friends with Noreena, Linda and May from the Aston area. Linda's parents had a pub some where off the Lichfield Road. Then there was Janet, Teresa and one or two others, some were only there for a short time, others for longer, like myself. I only wish I could remember their surnames.

If anyone recalls being in Yardley around this time, or know any of the ward staff, I would be interested in hearing from you.
 
Hello forever young, what a blast from the past i have added to this thread about my wife, and if you back track you,ll find it but the Dr Ross thing brought it all back as well, he was her doctor as well, strange man but fantastic at what he did.
regards dereklcg
 
My Mom was in that Little Bromwich Fever Hospital in 1929 (aged 4) for 12 months with Scarlet Fever. She said she wasn't allowed to see her Mom & Dad but remembers when she went in, she had a string like necklace around her full of dummies!! She still has this terrible look of sadness when she talks of her time in there without seeing her parents.....she's now nearly 83 bless her.
 
When on the top deck of bus from the City the patients would wave to us and we would wave back i think it cheered them up and that were they were not forgotten. Len.
 
Sanatorium Yardley Green
My first job after leaving Saltley Grammar in 1960 was working in the Path Lab at this hospital. It was an old house in the grounds. I had the job of testing all the spits from patients with TB - the stench used to turn my stomach.
Carole Burden (nee Beebee)
 
I remember it well. If you travelled on the top deck of a Number 15 bus from the Yew Tree into the city you could see all the patients. On nice days they used to wheel the beds outside in neat rows so the patients could get some fresh air. I always understood it to be a TB hospital.
 
I was admitted to Little Bromwich at the age of 3 with croup. My only memories are being in a steam tent with boiling kettles and in a corridor, several iron lungs that scared the death out of me. No parental visits were allowed until the day of discharge and they even received a letter telling them when they could collect me. I have no idea why the letter was saved but its 56 years old now.
 
Both of my great aunts and then my aunt were nursed in Arden Lodge when it was an elderly care unit.
You may find more info on the Fever Hospital side on the Heart of England site, if they have an archive section. Will try to contact a friend of mine who worked there to see if he has any more info.
Sue
 
my grandfather william edward crofts died of T B in april 1940 on hid death cetificate it says he died at city sanitorium yardley green road
 
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