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Pineapple Farmhouse once stood opposite Hazelwell Church, near the mini roundabout where Vicarage Road, Millbrook Road and Allens Croft Road meet. Pineapple Farm was mentioned in documents as far back as 1648, which was about the time when the fruit was introduced to England. Could it be that the farm’s name is based on an attempt to grow the fruit in Birmingham? More probably it was from the stone gate posts that were carved to resemble the “new” fruit. The farm also gave its name to the council estate developed here during the inter-war years. Some local residents believed that the name arose from Major Cartland who owned a garden or barn where he grew pineapples; others were of the opinion that it came from the planting of a pine tree in the garden in front of each house.
In the fields nearby were several clay-pits and brick works – including ones near Cartland Road, Partons Road, Drawberry Fields Road and Hazelwell Park. The stone beneath Birmingham was too soft to make houses, so clay was dug out of the ground, formed into shape using molds, and fired at high temperatures in kilns to make the bricks used to build houses and other buildings close by. The clay in Birmingham contains a lot of iron oxide, giving them the distinctive red colour, whereas the bricks in London tend to be more yellow because they contain chalk or ash.
These two photographs show what Pineapple Farm was like, before and after the housing estate was built. The first picture, taken in 1920 shows fields and countryside, with the beginnings of building works just visible. The second photo was taken 5 years later from roughly the same place – can you work out where it was taken?
