Minworth Greaves is a timber cruck-framed, Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Bournville Bournville () is a model village on the southwest side of Birmingham, England, founded by the Quaker Cadbury family for employees at its Cadbury's factory, and designed to be a "garden" (or "model") village where the sale of alcohol was forbidd ...

, an area of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, England. It is thought to date from the 14th-century or earlier, possibly as early as 1250. It is owned by the

Bournville Village Trust Bournville Village Trust is an organisation that was created to maintain and improve the suburb of Bournville, located in Birmingham. However, during the 20th century it expanded its geographical coverage to include developments in Shenley Green ...

. Minworth Greaves is situated next to

Selly Manor Selly Manor is a timber-framed building in Bournville, that was moved to its current site in 1916 by chocolate manufacturer and philanthropist George Cadbury. Together with the adjacent Minworth Greaves, it is operated as Selly Manor Museum b ...

, and is run as part of Selly Manor Museum. It was originally built in

Minworth Minworth is a suburban village situated in the civil parish of Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. It lies within the City of Birmingham on its northeastern outer fringe, where it forms part of the Sutton Walmley and Minworth electoral ward and b ...

, near

Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south ...

to the North of Birmingham. After falling into extreme disrepair, it was purchased by

George Cadbury George Cadbury (19 September 1839 – 24 October 1922) was the third son of John Cadbury, a Quaker who founded Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company in Britain. He was the husband of Dame Elizabeth Cadbury. Background He worked at the schoo ...

and re-built by

Laurence Cadbury Laurence is an English and French given name (usually female in French and usually male in English). The English masculine name is a variant of Lawrence and it originates from a French form of the Latin ''Laurentius'', a name meaning "man from L ...

in 1932 in the grounds of Selly Manor.

History

The building is

timber framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

with plaster infill. The old part is a two bay cruck-framed hall. The main roof is formed by a bent oak tree, split in half lengthways to form a pair of cruck blades. There is also the modern addition of a thin bay with a gallery. The original windows were smaller and higher up than in the reconstruction and were formed by cloth soaked in animal fat, rather than glass.

Relocation

Minworth Greaves originally stood in Minworth, to the north of Birmingham. It fell into disrepair, leaving only a skeleton of the building. It was purchased by

and re-built by

in 1932 in the grounds of Selly Manor, which had been similarly dismantled and reconstructed by the Cadburys by 1916. Only the cruck-beamed great hall and some of main timbers could be saved and these were reconstructed to show what a cruck-beamed hall was thought to look like. The restoration was overseen by architect

William Alexander Harvey William Alexander Harvey (11 April 1874 – 6 February 1951) was an English architect. He is most notable for his design of Bournville, the model 'garden suburb' built by Cadburys to house their chocolate-making workforce to the south of ...

. In 1921 an , eight-legged oak table dated from 1630 was brought for display in Minworth Greaves from

Crook Hall Crook Hall, sited near Lanchester, County Durham, some north west of the city of Durham, was one of two Roman Catholic seminaries which temporarily replaced the Douai seminary in Douai, France when that college was suppressed soon after the Frenc ...

in Lancashire, which is now demolished. The table is inscribed, 'an arelome to this house forever. P.C.'. Minworth Greaves became a Grade II listed building in 1952. It is now open to the public and used to host exhibitions.

References

External links

Selly Manor Museum
{{Birmingham buildings Museums in Birmingham, West Midlands Grade II listed buildings in Birmingham Country houses in the West Midlands (county) Historic house museums in the West Midlands (county) Grade II listed museum buildings