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Page 13
Before entering the works, a few steps further along the road will
give us some idea of the many advantages gained by moving the factory
out into the country. Just opposite the lodge a sloping path leads to
the cycle-house, where some 200 machines are stored during work hours.
Beyond this, in the middle of a flower garden, stands the Estate
Office of the Bournville Village Trust, and in the background higher
up a girls' pavilion can be seen through the trees. Behind it stretch
asphalt tennis-courts and playing-fields, bordered by a belt of fine
old trees, under whose shade wind pretty shrubbery walks lined with
rustic seats. A passage under the road leads straight from the
works into these beautiful grounds, and on a summer's day few prettier
sights could be found than the numbers of white-robed girls who stream
across in the dinner-hour to revel in the sunshine of the open fields,
or sit in groups beneath the shady trees, enjoying a picnic lunch. A
little further along the road the trees and the rhododendron bushes
sweep backwards, leaving an open space, where a smooth lawn reaches to
the front of a fine old mansion, for many years used as a home for
some fifty of the work-girls whose own homes are at a distance, or who
have no home at all. The fruit gardens and vineries belonging to
"Bournville Hall" are used for the benefit of work-people who are ill.
[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Coronation Cricket Pavilion,
Bournville.]
Turning back again, we find on the other side of the road a
magnificent pavilion, the Coronation gift of the firm to their
employees, which overlooks the broad level stretch of one of the
finest cricket grounds in the Midlands. Away in the hollow beyond, the
Bourn forms a picturesque, shady pool, part of which is used to make a
capital open-air swimming bath for the men. In the rising background
are the pretty houses and the gardens of the model village. Still
retracing our steps, we now come to the original cottages built by the
firm. Plainer and less picturesque than those of more modern
construction, their air of comfort, and the creepers which cover many
of their walls, make them harmonize well with their surroundings. One
of them is now used as a youths' club, providing games, a circulating
library, and reading and lecture rooms. Another contains club rooms
for the office staff. In passing we catch sight of a fine swimming
bath for the girls.
Through the lodge and under the clematis, a few steps bring us to the
private railway-station, which in size would do credit to many a town.
Here trucks are loaded with finished goods and despatched to their
various destinations. Every working day of the year a long train,
extending often in the busiest season to as many as forty truck-loads,
steams out of this station to scatter the productions of Bournville
over the face of the Earth. Close by the station we turn into the
offices, where the fittings and general arrangement convey an air of
refined solidity according well with the goods produced.
[Illustration--Black and White Plate: Girls' Dining Hall, Bournville.]
Before proceeding to study the manufacture of cocoa essence and
chocolate from the bean as it is imported, it will be interesting to
see the careful provision that is made for the health and cleanliness
of the workers, for in connection with any food nothing is of greater
importance than the circumstances attending its preparation. A
gratuitous sick club is provided by the firm for the employees,
including the services of a doctor and three trained nurses. A special
retiring room, comfortably furnished, is provided for girls needing a
quiet hour's rest.
We are taken into the girls' dining-hall, capable of seating over two
thousand at a time, fitted with benches, the backs of which are
convertible into table tops. The far end of the dining-hall leads into
the huge kitchen, to which the girls can bring their own dinners to be
cooked, or where they can buy a large variety of things at
coffee-house prices. Here again the health of the workers is carefully
studied. Fruit is made a speciality, an experienced buyer being
employed to insure its better supply. A private dining-room is
provided for the forewomen.
Returning to the dining-hall, we descend a flight of steps into the
spacious dressing-rooms, with vistas of wooden screens, filled on each
side with numbered hooks. Here every morning the thousands of girls
not only divest themselves of their outer garments, but change their
dresses for washing frocks of white holland. The material for these is
provided by the firm, free for the first, and afterwards at less than
cost price, and the girls are required to start work in a clean frock
every Monday morning. It will be seen at once how this helps them to
keep neat and respectable; their strong white washing frocks only
being soiled by their work, after which they change back into their
own unstained clothes, and turn out looking as great a contrast to the
usually pictured type of factory girl as can be imagined. The
forewomen also conform to this arrangement, but wear washing dresses
of blue cotton to distinguish them from the girls. Round the walls of
this vast dressing-room hot-water pipes are placed, and over these are
shelves where on a rainy day wet boots can be deposited to dry.
Specially thoughtful is the provision of rubber snow-shoes, imported
from America for their use, and supplied under cost price. Beneath
each stool, too, is a shelf for heavy boots, which can be replaced in
the factory by slippers.
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