Bournville

Bournville is a 19th-century model village on Birmingham’s southwest edge, built by the Cadbury family for their factory workers. It sits beside the Worcester and Birmingham Canal with the Stirchley Street railway station nearby. The village was designed as a ‘garden’ community where alcohol was banned, reflecting the Quaker values of its founders. Stock Wood’s bluebell glades and Roman remains lie just beyond the houses, while Selly Manor and Minworth Greaves date from the 15th and 14th centuries. The Cadbury brothers moved their factory here in 1879 to escape city grime and expand production. They bought land named after the local Bourn stream, creating a planned estate with wide gardens and Arts and Crafts houses. George Cadbury later laid out 313 cottages on 330 acres by 1900, with William Alexander Harvey as the resident architect. Rowheath’s playing fields, lido and pavilion opened in 1924 for workers and their families to use freely. Visitors find tree-lined streets of traditional brick homes grouped around a village green. The Bournville Centre for Visual Arts and Cadbury World stand near the factory. Rowheath’s sports grounds and mineral spring pool remain, though the outdoor lido closed in the 1970s. The Bournville Village Trust still manages the conservation area, preserving schools, meeting houses and public baths from the early 1900s.