Thanks to everyone who has already sponsored me on my heritage run from Bournville to Moor Pool, with 5k completed around Moor Pool.
I laced up my trainers on 17th August and the actual run took a slightly different route back than I had planned, with a few ‘Easter eggs’ added in. Here’s how it went!
I set off from Bournville Station Mary Vale Bridge, hoping for chocolate on the cut but it was not particularly chocolatey-smelling on the day! The canal passes the Cadbury factory and model village that inspired the building of Moor Pool Estate along the waterways that once carried materials that built these garden suburbs.
Next I reached Selly Oak junction – once a hub of activity, Goodman’s Yard supplied materials that built the Council House and Moor Pool itself. This is where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets Lapal Canal which connected to brickworks vital to both Moor Pool and Bournville. Selly Oak substation, built in 1890, still stands nearby as another of the surviving designs of Moor Pool’s architects Martin and Martin, and in recent years this area has gradually been restored.
Then it was on to the University past the Old Joe Clocktower built 1901-8 in honour of Joseph Chamberlain, the University’s first chancellor and uncle of Margaret Nettlefold.
Coming off the canal via the bridge at Somerset Road (4km in from Bournville Station), I headed to her former home, Winterbourne House, built in 1903 for her and her husband John Sutton Nettlefold and where they lived until 1919.
JS Nettlefold chose the architects Martin & Martin to design Moor Pool in a modest Arts & Crafts style. Some of their other domestic buildings still stand in Edgbaston, including Frederick Martin’s own home which I passed heading up Farquhar Road (you can spot it at No. 17, it’s the roughcast rendered house with 1907 on front).
Then up Richmond Hill Road to the White Swan once known as the Duck where the Chad Valley Skittle Club were located and competed with Moor Pool Skittle Club, one of the many clubs on the Estate.
I then headed to Moor Pool via Yateley Road that has a number of Arts & Crafts houses. Then by the former site of Chad Valley Toys under what was once the Harborne railway before passenger service ended in 1934. Many residents of Moor Pool once worked at the Chad Valley site or were attracted to the Estate by its transport connections by rail or bus.
Then at around 8km I reached Moor Pool for the 5k Summer Challenge round the Estate.
Neither Nettlefold nor Martin designed Moor Pool with cars in mind but luckily there were very few driving around the Estate. I did a few laps of the Circle, round and round and round at the heart of the Estate: the Hall, the shops, the Estate Office. This felt a bit like Moor Pool’s track!
The Estate follows the natural landscape, with narrow, winding streets made for green space and wide enough for two Hanson cabs. With its undulating terrain I guess it makes good hill training!
I then went up to the top of Carless Avenue, which was where the Estate was finished in 1912, and back down to High Brow, North Gate and on to every other road of the Estate, which only needed to be done once due to at least 8 laps of the Circle.
The return journey home took me down Harborne Park Lane, which follows the line of the Lapal Canal and thankfully was a nice downhill. You can still spot remnants of it in Selly Oak Park, where parts are now being restored up to the Selly Oak canal junction and former wharf. There is access back to the canal at the site of canal junction but I decided to carry on by road.
Down Linden Road takes you past Bournville Green which is Bournville’s historical community hub with the shops, Carillon and Rest House. Then I continued on, passing the Cadbury Factory. Both Nettlefold and Cadbury had recreation and outdoor clubs in mind when they built their garden suburbs and the Cadbury playing fields feature the Men’s Pavilion and Bournville Bowls Club.
I decided to end my run in the former Cadbury Girls’ Recreation Grounds, also known as a ‘secret garden’, the perfect place to reflect. Not only was Bournville the site of the first Garden City conference in 1901 but the Martin family, who built Moor Pool, were the last residents of Bournbrook Hall and Estate on this site before it was sold to Cadbury in 1895. The Hall is long gone, replaced by the Girls’ Recreation Grounds with the lily pond where the cellar was once and surviving outbuildings, but a very fitting end to my run to finish where it all began!
If you feel like following in my footsteps by running through Birmingham’s garden suburb history, here is the route!
And you still have time to sponsor me through Justgiving. Thanks so much for your support!
Barbara Nomikos, Moor Pool Hall Manager, August 2025
Moor Pool Hall
37 The Circle, Harborne,
Birmingham, B17 9DY
Registered Charity Number: 1148252
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