Bournville History: Bournbrook Hall

Click to enlarge.

Above: Photograph of the ornamental pool in the old 'Girls' Recreation Ground', taken in about 2011.

If you go exploring around the Bournville area, one of the old remnants of George Cadbury's original village design is an ornamental pool situated at the far end of the old Girls' Recreation Ground off Bournville Lane.

It was originally a quite retreat for female employees at Cadbury's, framed by the rural landscape of the early 1900s.

Below: Two postcards depicting the pool in about the 1920s.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

Near to the pool was also a walled-garden, which is still there today, and gives the sense that the area was once the grounds of an eighteenth-century villa. This villa was sometimes called Bournbrook Hall, at other times Bournbrook House, and occasionally Barnbrook, but the park around the pool was once its grounds, and the pool itself was its cellar.

The house was still standing when the Cadbury's arrived, and can be seen in early photographs, where it was situated on Bournville Lane, facing the men's sports grounds (see below).

Click to enlarge.

Above: Men's sports grounds, Pavilion club house, and Bournbrook Hall to the rear on the right, 1902. The house had been demolished by 1910.


The Cadbury's bought the Bournbrook Hall estate in 1895, which included lands which later became both the 'mens'' and 'girls'' grounds. The walled-garden which survives was the kitchen garden, and the premises also had stables, which are still standing, and Grade II listed, although getting little care and attention at present. The map (below) shows the area in the 1880s, just as Cadbury's was moving in.

Bournbrook Hall area in the 1880s. Click to enlarge.

Bounbrook Hall was a gentleman's residence, and would have been a fine building in its day.

Bournbrook Hall area in the 1930s. Click to enlarge.

Close-up of Bournbrook Hall, 1902.