Chocolate Heaven

Cadbury World is a chocolate lover's Heaven on Earth. When you first enter the Cadbury World exhibit, you are presented with two different kinds of Cadbury chocolate bars to munch on during the tour. About 1/3 of the way through you get another two bars (different kinds), and about 2/3 of the way through there is a demonstration area where live demonstrators give you information about certain processes and give you all the samples you want. The exhibit has a very comprehensive history of the business, dating back to the early 1800's... and a complete tour of the factory and a bunch of other displays. Of course, at the end, there was a large gift shop to buy anything and everything "Cadbury". I bought quite a bit to bring home, hoping there will still be some left by the time we actually get home!

The Cadbury chocolate business was established by a strict Quaker family who, over time, developed one of the most impressive business models in the world. They paid a fair wage and, eventually, the entire town of Bournville was created around the Cadbury chocolate business. The Cadbury's wanted their workers to have good housing, medical facilities and everything else to make life pleasant so they built housing and hospitals and parks and other facilities for the families. The name Bournville was chosen because the "Bourn" water canal ran through the area... and, of course, "ville" was added to denote this was a village.

So strict were the Cadbury's in their faith and hiring practices, no married woman was employed at the factory until the time of World War II. The Cadbury family felt a married woman's place was in the home, and a woman working would encourage her husband to become lazy and live off her income. During the war, however, when the man labor was in short supply, they changed their employment policies and have continued to employ single and married women ever since.

Bournville and Cadbury World are only about 1/2 hour from our homebase, in Solihull. This is really a very central location for touring from. We've certainly seen a lot so far and ALL our adventures have been day trips.

Have a wonderful day (and be sure there is chocolate involved),
Carol

"There is nothing so valuable as a good friend... except, perhaps, a good friend with chocolate".