steps, and a few yards up the lane to the left, with
a playing field on one side, and on the other a plantation of
fir-trees almost hiding the red brick and timbered gables of the
office buildings, and we have arrived at the factory lodge. Looking
through the open door down a vista of archways bowered in clematis
and climbing roses, with an alpine rock garden at each side of the
broad walk, we might almost imagine ourselves to be at the entrance to
some botanical gardens. But a glance at the thousands of check hooks
covering the inner wall of the lodge informs us that more than 2,400
girls pass in and out every day. The men's lodge is at a separate
gate.

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
capit