United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Two thousand years ago it was not the Society of Friends but wolves and wild boars who felt themselves at home on the site of Bournville Garden Village. To-day we are surprised when we read that in remote East Africa lions and giraffes venture occasionally to interfere in the murderous warfare between man and man.
Lever to plan his little town with a single eye to the best and most desirable conditions, alike from an industrial and a health and housing point of view. And the same is true of Bournville.
What has been done at Port Sunlight, at Bournville and other places shows that, by proper forethought and wise expenditure, small houses which it is a pleasure instead of a pain to look upon, can be provided.
It is out of this thought that the Garden City idea has grown, an idea now in course of being fulfilled. Three thousand eight hundred acres of land, or nearly ten times the area of Bournville or Port Sunlight, have been acquired in Hertfordshire, two miles west of the town of Hitchin, and on the branch line of railway between that town and Cambridge.
One of the most interesting events of the Cricket Club is the annual match with a team representing Messrs. Fry and Sons, of Bristol, the oldest established cocoa firm in this country. In friendly opposition to the "Bournville Club" are the teams drawn from the "Youths' Club," and other outside organizations.
What are the signs? What words can we place under the head of "Incipient" in Prof. Geddes' diagram? I would suggest, for one of Prof. Geddes' interrogation marks might be substituted "Decentralisation of Industry" as a great, but yet incipient movement, represented by Port Sunlight, Bournville, Garden City. For there are now many agencies at work making for industrial decentralisation.
The Cadburys, like the Rowntrees, are well known as an energetic and public-spirited family, their social and industrial experiments at Bournville and their general social and political activities are broad and constructive in the best sense.
A number of cottages erected for the work-people in those early days became the nucleus of a great scheme which in the last few years has expanded into the model village of Bournville, a name taken from the neighbouring Bourn stream. Year by year the factory grew and developed, until the green hay-fields, with the trout stream flowing through them, became gradually covered with buildings.
As some evidence that the scheme is appreciated, it may be stated that the total balance transferred to the Post Office Savings Bank has averaged over £3,200 per annum. While in the district of Bournville, the opportunity must not be lost of becoming more closely acquainted with the village around the works.
No wonder the faces around are bright, no wonder that openings at the Bournville factory are in demand, and that long service for the firm is the boast of so many of the employees. Among these, a little band of about thirty still upholds the traditions of the old firm that laid the foundations of the present company in the city of Birmingham.
Word Of The Day