Ancestry UK

St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales

St Winifred's Home for Girls was opened by the Waifs and Strays Society in 1925 at Summerfield on Brighton Road, Rhyl. The home, which was the successor to the St Mark's Home for Girls in Carnarvon, could accommodate 26 girls aged from 6 to 16. Most of its initial residents were the daughters of men who had died in the First World War.

St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, c.1925. © Peter Higginbotham

St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, c.1925. © Peter Higginbotham

Christmas at St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, c.1926. © Peter Higginbotham

For many years, the home was run by three sisters named Bertha, Lily and Blanche Broughton, who took on the role of matron in turn.

St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, c.1929. © Peter Higginbotham

St Winifred's Home for Girls, Rhyl, c.1931. © Peter Higginbotham

After the Second World War, the home became a mixed establishment. In 1954, Chester Zoo presented the children at the home with a donkey named Joseph as a Christmas present. Mr G.A. Mottershead, curator of the zoo, had heard that the home was in need of a donkey for its Christmas Nativity play. He said it could have Joseph and keep him for good.

The home closed in around 1971.

Records

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Bibliography