Selly Manor 3.68

Selly Manor is a timber cruck-framed, 14th-century building, in England, dating back to at least 1327. Originally the manor house of the village of Bournbrook in Worcestershire (Bournbrook is now a suburb in the modern day Selly Oak ward of Birmingham), it was relocated to the nearby Bournville district in the early 20th century. Together with the adjacent Minworth Greaves, it is operated as a museum and venue for functions including weddings, for which it is licensed. It houses the Laurence Cadbury furniture collection.HistoryThe building's oak frame is held together by mortice and tenon joints. The brick nogging (infill) is later, 16th century, and the star-shaped brick chimneys date from the 16th or 17th centuries. The building was much altered during its history, and the three gabled bays are each from a different date.Court rolls of 1327 record it as being occupied by the Jouette family, who were tax collectors. By the end of the 19th century the house had been sub-divided into three dwellings, which were known as Rookery Cottages.RelocationThe building was in a poor state of repair when its destruction was prevented by George Cadbury, who acquired it in 1907. From 1914, he had it painstakingly dismantled, the parts numbered, and rebuilt near his chocolate factory, as a centrepiece for his model village, Bournville. The rebuilding project, completed in 1916, was overseen by the architect William Alexander Harvey, at a cost of over £6,000. It opened to the public, as a museum, in 1917. The house was protected with Grade II listed status in 1952.