Friday Photo: Selly Manor

Today’s Friday photo is of the interior of one of the upstairs rooms at Selly Manor, Bournville (decorated suitably spookily for Halloween). The currently occupied tester bed in the photo is thought to have belonged to Edmund Prys (1544 – 1623) – the panelled headboard bears the initials EP, and the date 1592. Edmund Prys is believed to have been involved in checking the bible for publication before it was translated into Welsh for the first time. To the right of the photo you can also see a ’Nonsuch’ chest dating from between 1530 and 1630. Named for Henry VIII’s palace of Nonsuch, which is no longer in existence.

Much of Selly Manor is over 500 years old, but that name was only given to the building in 1916. Originally built as a farmhouse and located on Bournbrook Road, near the junction with Selly Wick Road / Raddlebarn Road, the building was bought and sold over the years, and by the 1800s it was falling into disrepair. In 1907, George Cadbury bought the structure at an auction and gave it to Bournville Village Trust for educational purposes. In 1909 the house was painstakingly dismantled with each piece being numbered for it to be more easily reassembled at its new and current home in Bournville. Inevitably some of the original fabric was lost, but by 1916 the project was complete, and it then opened as a museum for people in the local area.