About
Selly Manor is one of the most charming and historically significant small museums in Birmingham: two beautifully restored medieval timber-framed buildings set in a delightful garden in the heart of Bournville, the model village created by Quaker chocolate manufacturer George Cadbury in the late 19th century. The manor comprises two distinct structures — Selly Manor itself, dating to around 1340, and Minworth Greaves, a smaller building of around 1250 — both of which were saved from demolition elsewhere in Birmingham and carefully re-erected in Bournville by Cadbury as part of his vision for a village that would preserve the best of England's past while building a better future for its working people.
The story of Selly Manor begins long before Bournville. Selly Manor stood in the Bournbrook area of Birmingham, threatened with demolition as the city expanded, when George Cadbury spotted its medieval character and acquired it for dismantling and re-erection. Minworth Greaves, dating back to around 1250 and thus among the oldest domestic buildings in Birmingham, was similarly rescued from a farmstead in the north of the city. Both buildings were painstakingly taken apart, their timbers numbered and recorded, transported to Bournville, and re-erected with great care on their present site, which opened as a museum in 1917.
The interiors of both buildings have been furnished with authentic medieval and post-medieval furniture and household objects, creating a vivid impression of domestic life across several centuries. The great hall of Selly Manor, with its central hearth space and open roof timbers, conveys the atmosphere of a 14th-century household with unusual immediacy. Period domestic equipment — cooking vessels, agricultural tools, bedding, textiles, and the implements of daily housekeeping — fills the rooms with the material reality of everyday life in the medieval and early modern periods.
The garden setting, maintained by the Bournville Village Trust in a style sympathetic to both the buildings and their Bournville context, adds considerably to the pleasure of a visit. The combination of extraordinary medieval architecture, authentic furnished interiors, a beautiful garden, and the wider Bournville village — itself a fascinating monument to Victorian social idealism — makes Selly Manor a truly exceptional destination.
Categories:
Annual Visitors (2019)
20,000
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Busiest: Saturday
💡 Weekday mornings in spring or autumn when the garden is at its best and the buildings are quiet
💡 Visitor Tips
- Selly Manor is best combined with a walk around Bournville village — the Arts and Crafts cottages, the green, the Quaker meeting house, and the almshouses all deserve attention and add essential context to the museum.
- Bournville station is just 4 minutes' walk from the museum and is served by the Cross-City Line with frequent trains from Birmingham New Street — no need to drive.
- The museum is seasonal, typically opening April to October. Always check the website before visiting in winter.
- Cadbury World is nearby but is an entirely separate attraction requiring separate booking and admission; the museum's proximity to Cadbury World makes Bournville a very satisfying full-day destination.
- School groups should book well in advance for the medieval handling sessions, which are extremely popular and can fill months ahead during the spring school term.
- The garden is particularly beautiful in April and May when spring planting combines with blossom from the small orchard — if you're visiting in spring, time your arrival for the garden.
- The interiors are rich with genuine period objects; take time to look carefully at individual items and read the labels — many of the more modest household objects have particularly fascinating stories.
- Selly Manor is a wonderful venue for wedding ceremonies and events — the medieval setting is extraordinary for photography.
Highlights
Selly Manor Building (c.1340)
The main manor house, dating from around 1340, is one of the oldest and finest timber-framed domestic buildings in Birmingham. The structure features the classic cruck-framed construction of the medieval period, with great curved oak timbers rising from ground level to support the roof ridge in a form that was already traditional when the building was erected.
The exterior, with its close-set upright timbers and infill panels, conveys immediately the character of medieval vernacular building that George Cadbury was so determined to preserve for future generations.
Minworth Greaves (c.1250)
Minworth Greaves, the smaller of the two buildings at Selly Manor, is of even greater antiquity — dating to around 1250, it is one of the oldest surviving domestic buildings in Birmingham and among the oldest timber-framed houses in the West Midlands. Originally a farmstead building from the north of Birmingham, it was dismantled, transported to Bournville, and re-erected alongside Selly Manor with the same meticulous care.
Its relatively modest scale and simple construction give it an immediate and unaffected character that provides an interesting contrast with the larger manor house.
The Great Hall
The great hall of Selly Manor is the heart of the building and its most atmospheric space. In the medieval period the hall was the centre of household life — the room where the family ate, received guests, conducted business, and often slept — and the Selly Manor hall conveys this communal character with great effectiveness.
The original open-hearth arrangement, now complemented by period furniture and household objects placed to suggest the patterns of daily life, gives the space an immediacy that makes the distant past feel suddenly present and accessible.
Medieval and Period Furnishings
Both buildings are furnished with carefully chosen period objects spanning the medieval through to the early modern period. Furniture, cooking equipment, agricultural tools, bedding, textiles, and domestic implements fill the rooms with authentic material, assembled to give a sense of the daily lives of the households that might have occupied such buildings.
Many of the objects are original examples from the relevant periods rather than reproductions, giving the interiors a quality of genuine historical encounter that distinguishes Selly Manor from more conventionally interpreted historic houses.
Collections
Selly Manor's collections centre on the two medieval timber-framed buildings themselves — Selly Manor (c. 1340) and Minworth Greaves (c. 1250) — and the period furnishings with which they are filled.
The furniture and domestic objects, spanning the medieval through to the early modern period, are predominantly original examples rather than reproductions. Interpretive material documents the history of both buildings, the rescue and re-erection undertaken by George Cadbury, and the social history of Bournville village.
Medieval Life at Selly Manor
Period interiors in both buildings interpreting domestic life in the medieval and early modern period
📍 Both buildings
George Cadbury and Bournville
Story of the rescue of the buildings and the creation of Bournville village
📍 Interpretive displays
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.