Moorpool Residents' Association - Moorpool in the 1970's

Moor Pool Educational Events

Deltion College - November 2014

The Moor Pool Heritage Trust recently offered a study day for a group of Dutch students from Deltion College in Zwolle in the Netherlands. The students were accompanied by their tutor, Henk Bruins and Paul Mountain, who is legal Counsel to Bournville College and helped to organise the event. The students are in their final year of studying Architecture and Civil Engineering and infrastructure and currently on a study programme at Bournville College, Birmingham.

Tricia Cusack gave an illustrated talk entitled, “Back-to-Backs to Garden Suburbs: The Arts and Crafts movement and the Making of Moor Pool. Tricia showed clearly how the principles of the design and architecture of Moor Pool Garden Suburb could be traced back to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. This was followed by a talk by Igor Cusack who spoke on Moor Pool Garden Suburb: Ownership, Conservation and the Inevitability of Change?

After a tour of Moor Pool Garden Suburb including the new Banner houses, the students were organised into small groups and asked to discuss and report back on a number of questions. They gave some interesting responses, for example, how we could improve heat retention in houses built without cavity walls. In relation to the gardens, some suggested that a measure of uniformity of design was appropriate for the estate. They approved of the design of the new houses built by Banner Homes and how well they fitted into the Estate. The star of the day was Barbara Iken who mesmerised the students with a personal account of what it was like to live on the Moor Pool for most of her life and where she anticipated staying. Finally the students helped to plant one hundred Dutch tulips on Park Edge, kindly provided by Liz Muir of Moor Pool in Bloom. All who were involved thought this had been a highly successful day. Henk hopes to repeat it next year.

Igor and Tricia Cusack
14 November 2014.

Deltion College Nov 2014