19 Lode Lane - Solihull Cottage Hospital

[Solihull Girl]

My birth certificate gives the above address which my mother always called the "cottage hospital". My sister, born two years later, was delivered in the new Solihull Hospital. Does anyone have information on 19 Lode Lane please? Thanks in advance.

 

[pjmburns]

You don't give a date but before the "new" hospital was built there were a couple of old large houses both of which, I think, were used as maternity units. One was "Netherwood" I was born there in the 1950s.
19 was actually opposite the hospital and was called Brook House. Click on the link for a map

View map: Ordnance Survey, SP1579NW - B - Ordnance Survey 1:1250 scale map - Ordnance Survey National Grid Maps, 1940s-1970s

 

[Solihull Girl]

Hi Janice
Thanks for this - I was born in the late 50's, so Brook House sounds right.

 

[Solihull Girl]

I found Netherwood on Facebook (only I do not have access)

 

[pjmburns]

I don't do Facebook either. I remember those houses.
The site of Brook House was roughly where Ardenlea Grove Nursing home now is.

 

[Green Girl]

That's right, my sister was born in Netherwood in 1958. At one time it was normal for mothers who gave birth in Netherwood to be moved across to Brook House to convalesce for a few days before going home. No quick turnaround in those days!

 

[pjmburns]

In the early 50s new Mothers were sent to Catherine De Barnes to the former Isolation Hospital.
My Mom was sent there after I was born.

 

[Green Girl]

Yes, that system was in place from 1950 - 1966 when it reverted to being an isolation hospital to take cases from a smallpox outbreak.

 

[Solihull Girl]

Hi all, many thanks for the info you have provided.