PLATE VII.
THE SCHOOLS,
BOURNVILLE
SEE PAGE [13].
PLATE VIII.
CARVED STONE PANELS
FOR SCHOOLS.
The Trustees have power to make arrangements with railways and other companies for cheap means of transit. They may lease, underlet, or sell land, or develop it and prepare it for building, give land, or erect buildings for places of worship, hospitals, schools, technical institutes, libraries, gymnasiums, laundries, baths, &c. Occupying a central position in the village are already the Bournville Meeting House (see Plates [x.] and [xi.]), the Ruskin Hall, an institute founded in 1903, and including library, reading-room, lecture hall, class rooms (see Plate [ix.]), and the schools described later. Ample open spaces have been reserved in various parts of the village. These include the Village Green; The Triangle (a plot of land with lawn, flower beds, and shrubbery, intersected by public paths—see Plate [ii.]); Camp Wood (an undulating woodland, thick with old forest-trees); children’s playgrounds and lawns, with swings, bars, &c.; allotment gardens; youths’ and girls’ gardens (consisting of a number of small plots rented and cultivated by boys and girls, in connection with which gardening classes are held), &c. A large area of land, through which flows the Bourn stream, has also been reserved for laying out as a public park. Adjacent to the Estate, though not part of it, are two extensive and well-wooded recreation grounds belonging to Messrs. Cadbury, which are put at the disposal of their men and women employees; those for the former including open-air swimming baths, which may be used during stipulated hours by the tenants of the Estate houses. These recreation grounds separate the works buildings from the village itself, and in the event of the factory ceasing to exist, the Trust deed provides that they be handed over to the District Council for use as a public park. Nearly all the old trees and woodland on the Estate have been preserved, and new trees planted in many parts.
The schools (see Plate [vii.]) are the gift to the village of Mr. and Mrs. George Cadbury. They accommodate 540 children (270 boys and 270 girls), and are constructed on the central-hall plan. There are six class-rooms for fifty children each, and six for forty each, and the dimensions of the large hall are 84 ft. by 32 ft. The land falls from North to South, and advantage has been taken of the basement afforded to provide for accommodation for classes in cookery, laundry, manual instruction, and various branches of handicraft. The buildings stand in grounds two and a-half acres in extent, adjoining which is the Park, the children thus having access in all to about ten acres. The tower rises to a height of about 60 ft., and has been utilised for a library, laboratory, &c. An extensive view of the surrounding country is obtained from the top, and a map, incised in stone, with compass and locating apparatus, is provided for instructing the children in local geography. Everything is being done in the designing of details—carved and painted panels, &c.—to make the building itself a permanent means of educating the children; the subjects chosen include historical scenes, truthfully depicted as regards dress, customs, architecture, &c., while in the bosses and voussoirs are represented English flowers and foliage, conventionally treated. The carving is executed by Mr. Benjamin Creswick, of Birmingham.
In the designing of the building every effort has been made to embody the latest improvements and the result of the most broad-minded and enlightened study of education.
Gardens are provided for the instruction of the children in gardening, vegetable growing, &c.
The low death-rate at Bournville during 1904 of 6·9 per thousand, compared with 19 per thousand in Birmingham, is some indication of the healthiness of the village. The figures are taken from the report of the district medical officer of health.
