Report - Cadburys Birmingham - Girls Baths, Tunnels and Grounds

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Finally got me some access and got me new camera down to brum and got some snaps.

The Workers entrance, as named in this thread, is actually the Men's tunnel. As Cadbury used to keep the men and women seperate, hence the need for two tunnels. The Men's tunnel is completely sealed at the garden's end due to vandals etc, although its open at the other end, we couldnt gain access as the other end leads into what is currently a building site. We believe they will leave the entrance in tact though so it may be accessable in the future when they are finished the building works.

Here's the snap I got of that tunnel (same as earlier pic to be honest).

 

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Cadbury's Birmingham - Girls Baths

On to the Girl's baths, not much to be said, hopefully the pics speak for themselves.

Couldnt get out of the clock onto the balcony as the stairs were missing and they werent for me climbing on the clock's workings to get up there (funnily enough!).

I have more pics of this, I'll probably put a site together to get them all in one place at some point.

 

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Women's Tunnel

On to the smaller tunnel, the Women's tunnel. This allowed the female workers to get from the baths to the cadbury club and the Girls grounds without accidentally bumping into any men.

 

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Re: Worker Entrance: Cadbury's, B'ham

And lastly some random pics of different bits around the girls grounds, where there were up to 90 gardeners working at one point in time - in the 60's we think.

Thats all from me just now, I'm arranging access to the Power Plant which was contructed in 1906 and apparently has some good industrial sized stuff in there.

Cheers.

 

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Re: Cadburys Birmingham - Girls Baths, Tunnels and Grounds - REPORT

More on the Girl's baths, cos I think they are worth posting. Sorry for the blurry one or two I'm not to good at standing still!

The weird contraption with all the tubes on is actually an integrated hair dryer system, which was cutting edge in its day.

Thats definetly me done now!

Col.

 

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Re: Cadburys Birmingham - Girls Baths, Tunnels and Grounds - REPORT

There were two sets of baths, one for the Girls which was indoors, and the other was outdoors for the men (cos they're men of course!). The men's baths are largely gone now, with only a little corner of it viewable next to what is the swimming pool in use today. Not sure on the reasons for having baths, suppose its kind of a "good company" thing, provide and your workers will be fit and happy.... or something like that

Cadbury's was a kind of Quaker family, so men and women were always seperate. I'm told the main men's tunnel was only used once a year when the men were allowed to mix with the women.

This place is steeped in history and there have been many publications about it all, for example the train line used to run actually into the factory so they could load stuff onto the trains. This place used to have 12,000 employees on site so you can imagine it was a huge site.

Unfortunetly we have missed most of the opportunities to get some real pics as alot of the stuff has already been demolished and replaced. I think the power plant is the last proper untouched industrial area on the site. I'm emailing the contact for that right now.

Cheers.