34 C O N T E X T 1 1 0 : J U LY 2 0 0 9 Charles Hippisley-Cox The secret garden suburb Built between 1907 and 1912, the Moorpool Estate in Birmingham represents a variation on the themes established by George Cadbury at nearby Bourneville. Tucked away a few miles west of Birmingham city centre and a short walk from Harborne High Street, Moorpool is one of the country’s least-known garden suburbs. It was the product of the progressive thinking associated with the liberal non-conformist tradition, which flourished in Birmingham in the second half of the 19th century. Many of the key industrialists were keen philanthropists, using their fortunes to transform Birmingham into a place where education, the arts and housing reform could flourish. The Nettlefolds, the N in GKN (Guest, Keen and Nettlefold), and the Chamberlains were two such families with a direct involvement in the Moorpool project. John Sutton Nettlefold (1866–1930) was the first chairman of the Birmingham housing committee. He commissioned the local architect Frederick Martin to create proposals for a low-density housing scheme on a 56-acre site centred on the old Moor Pool, which had been purchased for £15,000 by HarborneTenants Ltd. Harborne Tenants was an experimental partnership scheme by which the tenants could eventually progress towards ownership. Original rents for the smaller properties were generously low, at between 4s 8d and 11s a week. Frederick Martin’s father William Martin had been co-founder of the famous Birmingham practice Chamberlain and Martin, which was responsible for such fine buildings as the School of Art (1881) on Margaret Street. William Martin had been the city’s public works architect, responsible for at least 40 of the famous board schools. One of Frederick Martin’s first important commissions after he joined his father’s practice was his terracotta masterpiece known locally as the Telephone Exchange (1896) on Newhall Street (Grade I). Martin’s master plan for the Moorpool Estate was based on a gently curving axis running uphill in a westerly direction from the Harborne Railway bridge to Lordswood Road (along what became Moorpool Avenue and Carless Avenue). At the halfway point he proposed a community hall, some shops and the estate offices enclosed within what became the Circle. The community hall included a snooker room and a skittle alley overlooking two tennis courts in the centre of the Circle. Other community amenities were to include a bowling green next to the old Moor Pool and space for allotments to supplement the gardens of the smaller properties. Off the main axis smaller roads were given directional names such as North Gate and East Pathway. Carless Avenue was named after a small wood that bore the name of an old landowning family, and High Brow was the name given to the road that rises up from Carless Avenue to join North Gate. Margaret Grove was named after Nettlefold’s wife (nee Chamberlain), who cut the first sod for the estate in 1907. Park Edge at the junction with the Circle
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