Description:‘[Where] industrial life today is concerned, Work and Play are not only closely related subjects, but one subject’.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
Bradbear produced watercolour views of both the men’s and girls' recreation grounds, as part of a group of illustrations entitled the ‘Bournville Series’, a set of colour postcards illustrating the Bournville Works and grounds. Copies of the postcards are contained within an album of <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1776"> Stiffeners and Coupon Sheets 1906-1916</a>, and were probably used as promotional gifts within boxes of chocolates.<small><sup>2</sup></small> Whist both images are undated, the style of dress suggests that they are circa 1910. What is most striking about both views, and, indeed with all of Bradbear’s watercolours of the exterior of the factory and its grounds, is his use of colour, typical of the artwork produced for Cadbury during the 1910s and 1920s. Whereas the girls' grounds are secluded spaces away from prying eyes, the men’s grounds resembled a public recreation space. With its large sports pavilion it was, and still is, located in a prominent space on the junction of Bournville Lane.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Bournville Work & Play (Bournville, 1926), p.3 [BA&H: LP 66.53 BOU]
<sup>2</sup> Stiffeners and Coupon Sheets 1906-1916, pp.120-121 [BA&H: MS 466/18]</small></font>