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Highcroft Hall Aston Union Workhouse Erdington House

  • Thread starter Thread starter elizabeth
  • Start date Start date
The grounds of Highcroft extended down to Slade road, with high railings all around. Often there would be a patient on the other side of the railings pleading with passers by to nip over to the newsagents shop opposite & get him some baccy. I did it for him once, but i wonder how many just took the money & ran.
 
It was, as Mike correctly says. Aston Union Workhouse. There was also Aston Union Cottage homes on the other side of Highcroft Road. It was an incredibly large complex and that at some stage became a mental hospital with a geriatric ward too.


There was quite a lot of land with this hospital, which I understand some of the inmates would farm and grow vegetables etc. The lower part of the complex adjacent to Slade Road, behind the prefabs was called North Croft Hospital. I have a feeling that this hospital also treated people with mental health problems.


I was told that there were padded cells at Highcroft and that people were interned there for violent crime. In the early eighties, I was given a job to develop a couple of rolls of film taken at the hospital. The subject of the photos was an exhibition held at the hospital showing the various methods of restraint for severely disturbed people. Most certainly, the pictures did show straight jackets, shackles and chains.


There are stories of people being interned at the hospital and becoming institutionalised, teenage girls who had become pregnant, syphilis cases and people with cerebral palsy.
 
Morturn said:
It was, as Mike correctly says. Aston Union Workhouse. There was also Aston Union Cottage homes on the other side of Highcroft Road. It was an incredibly large complex and that at some stage became a mental hospital with a geriatric ward too.


There was quite a lot of land with this hospital, which I understand some of the inmates would farm and grow vegetables etc. The lower part of the complex adjacent to Slade Road, behind the prefabs was called North Croft Hospital. I have a feeling that this hospital also treated people with mental health problems.


I was told that there were padded cells at Highcroft and that people were interned there for violent crime. In the early eighties, I was given a job to develop a couple of rolls of film taken at the hospital. The subject of the photos was an exhibition held at the hospital showing the various methods of restraint for severely disturbed people. Most certainly, the pictures did show straight jackets, shackles and chains.


There are stories of people being interned at the hospital and becoming institutionalised, teenage girls who had become pregnant, syphilis cases and people with cerebral palsy.
Click to expand...

Having had a relative involved for many years in Highcroft Hospital I believe the padded cells were used for mentally ill patients that were at high risk of doing themselves harm, and to a lesser extent if they were a danger to others.
 
Agreed, I was trying to say that there were padded cells and it also housed people convicted of violent crime (allegedly).


There was a lot of stigma attached to mental institutions like Highcroft that ultimately leads to the generation of local stories, collective and reconstructed memory.


Most certainly there was a local story (my dad told me, who grew up on Hermitage Road) of an inmate escaping and killing a young school boy.


My mom was always saying the “you lot are going to have in in Highcroft Hall, the way you’re going”
 
Morturn said:
Agreed, I was trying to say that there were padded cells and it also housed people convicted of violent crime (allegedly).


There was a lot of stigma attached to mental institutions like Highcroft that ultimately leads to the generation of local stories, collective and reconstructed memory.


Most certainly there was a local story (my dad told me, who grew up on Hermitage Road) of an inmate escaping and killing a young school boy.


My mom was always saying the “you lot are going to have in in Highcroft Hall, the way you’re going”
Click to expand...
In the forties and early fifties that was a threat that a lot of misbehaving children heard, the other one was to girls who brought home poor reports and that was 'you'll be lucky to be able to get a job in Woolworths if you go on like this'. My poor sister suffered this regularly. What a change now if they still existed Wooworths would demand University degrees I have no doubt.

Bob
 
Hi everyone I recently found out that my 3x great grandmother died in the Erdington workhouse (ive googled it and it might be the Aston Union workhouse also) her name was Jane Coffman, she died there in April 1897. The thing that puzzles me is that my 3x great grandad Georg Coffman didnt pass until January 1902. Did women go into workhouses while still married, he wasnt in there with her. Cant find any records for her apart from the funeral register. Is there anywhere I can get more information online or in person please?
 
As I understand it Rachel, the workhouse was on the site of Highcroft Hospital. In 1869 it was Aston Union Workhouse until around 1912, then it became Erdington House until the 1940s after which it became Highcroft Hall Hospital until closure in the 1990s. So it would have been Aston Union Workhouse when Jane was there. Any of the subsequent organisations may have inherited the records. Someone may know where any records are kept (if they still exist).

I wonder if Jane's husband was away or had left her with no means of supporting herself ? Or maybe she was ill, physically or mentally ? If no one could take care of a sick person they were often admitted to workhouses. Viv.
 
Hi, my GGF died in a workhouse in the 1940s despite having a large family. The extract below from workhouse org, which I think you may already have visited, puts things in context.
upload_2018-7-22_8-34-39.png

I did a search on the surname Coffman in the 1891 Birmingham census and there weren't many - I've attached the results below. Also details of a 'lone' Rosannah Coffman.
The occupation of 'slipper maker' may be coincidental but may indicate a family connection?

All names like 'Coffman'.......
upload_2018-7-22_8-44-16.png
Family containing name 'Coffman'
upload_2018-7-22_8-44-58.png

Details for Vaughton street where Coffmans are in lodgings...
upload_2018-7-22_9-0-24.png
 
Not sure when Erdington workhouse closed. It was in Bell Lane and the Library was built on the site in 1906-7. It may have been demolished long before that though.
 
Just off the top of my head, it was Aston Union Workhouse and then became Highcroft Hospital. I am wondering if highcroft Hall was a local name?

I do know it was a geriatric ward for the elderly, and it was also home to a lot of people with both mental and physical disabilities. There were a lot of ‘stories’ associated with the site. Some say it used to home quite dangerous inmates in padded cells etc. I was asked to develop and print a set of photos from an exhibition showing some of the restraint devices used at the hospital.

With changes in medical care and new drugs, these practices fell out of use.
 
Highcroft is now a beautiful development of house and flats fronted by the original entrance.
My mother in law worked there in the50s/ 60s and some of the patients were challenging but I think the padded cells were no longer in use.
It housed a mixture of what then were called Mental patients and Geriatric patients.
I visited a friend who was a patient in 1969 ( she had suffered what was called a nervous breakdown), The place was still Dickensian and dismal , not an environment to lift your spirits.
 
My Aunt was in Highcroft for a while in the early 70's I think it was. May have been late 60's. She had what was then called 'disseminated sclerosis'. I couldn't understand why she was so upset about going there if she would be made better but Mom said it was because everyone remembered it as a workhouse and there was a stigma attached. Understandable perhaps.
 
I think my husband's Gran died there in 1970. The address on her death certificate is 18 Highcroft Road - she had what would now be called dementia.
 
Morturn said:
Just off the top of my head, it was Aston Union Workhouse and then became Highcroft Hospital. I am wondering if highcroft Hall was a local name?

I do know it was a geriatric ward for the elderly, and it was also home to a lot of people with both mental and physical disabilities. There were a lot of ‘stories’ associated with the site. Some say it used to home quite dangerous inmates in padded cells etc. I was asked to develop and print a set of photos from an exhibition showing some of the restraint devices used at the hospital.

With changes in medical care and new drugs, these practices fell out of use.
Click to expand...
Have you any of those photos still available for purchase please?
 
i have a family birth cert here saying date of birth 3.8.1947..where born 18 highcroft road at highcroft hall hospital...the child was taken for adoption at about 8 months old...from what i understand due to the mothers mental state

lyn
 
Astoness said:
i have a family birth cert here saying date of birth 3.8.1947..where born 18 highcroft road at highcroft hall hospital...the child was taken for adoption at about 8 months old...from what i understand due to the mothers mental state

lyn
Click to expand...
Hi Lyn,
Highcroft was being used as a routine maternity hospital at this time, I have a family member who was born there in June '47.
 
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thanks for that info jim...dudley road hospital must have been full up then as the rellie lived on the door step

lyn
 
When i was at Elliot st school we had to go to Slade rd clinic. alongside the clinic was a high wire fence. separating,the clinic from the hospital for folks with a mental prob. they would stand by the wire and ask for cigarettes and matches. so sad.
 
We used to live opposite Highcroft Hall at 452 Slade Road in the early 60s. There was an event one summer with Jimmy Clitheroe and a puppet show which amazed me - I must have been 6 at the time. I remember being told that a patient had 'escaped' and murdered (tried to murder?) someone at the bus stop near our house. The institution did have a real fear attached to it - my sister and brother used to threaten each other with 'being sent to Highcroft Hall'.
 
devonjim said:
Hi Lyn,
Highcroft was being used as a routine maternity hospital at this time, I have a family member who was born there in June '48.
Click to expand...

hi jim the mother in this case was a patient at all saints in 1939...so it could be she was there due to mental health reasons or because the hospital was used as an overflow..

lyn
 
edit there is another thread here about the hospital during the period 1936 - 1950

Highcroft Hall Erdington circa 1936 to 1950

Trying to find the history of what happened to Highcroft Hall and its demise or name change etc
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk

------

hi folk cant find a thread for this at the moment...i need some help please in finding out about the old erdington almshouses/workhouse which it may have originally have been..ive been told the address is the gardens fentham road erdington and is at the back of the old highcroft hospital also been told that there used to be an old well on the site..any info..photos or old maps would be very much appreciated...

thanks

edit found it on streetview


www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com www.google.com
lyn
 
Last edited by a moderator:
On this map published in 1915 it is called the Birmingham Union Workhouse and at the side Cottages Homes. The homes were not present on the 1880s map and it was called the Aston Union Workhouse.

C1D15B05-5AAD-4C33-9C12-7005FF6308C2.jpeg
 
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