About a month ago I received a text from a friend –
‘Do you want to go to Birmingham on Sunday?’
‘Um why’
‘Cadbury Factory’
‘Sold’
To be honest, Birmingham had been on my list of places to visit before leaving the UK. This seemed like an excellent opportunity.
Whilst this post isn’t strictly about B’ham it is about a chocolate factory- hey maybe you’ll find that a little more entertaining anyway.
The Cadbury factory is located in Bourneville and getting there from London is fairly straight forward. Trains leave from St Pancras ( about 1 every hour) and arrives at Birmingham New street after about two hours of gliding north. After that it’s about a 20 minute local train to Bourneville.
The walk from Bournville station to Cadbury is simple and before long you’ll be smelling chocolate. Like… even if you don’t like chocolate you’ll enjoy this.
When you initially book, you select time to tour. As we were early we had a browse around the gift shop. It was good- but I wasn’t overly impressed, they had lots of different sections but the same merchandise at pretty much each stand.
Before starting the tour you are presented with some chocolate – makes sense
Next, you enter something which isn’t quite what I expected- in fact it reminded me of the rainforest café. If you haven’t been there, heres a photo of Cadbury world, just so you get the picture of what we’re dealing with here.
This part is self-guided and you walk through the origins and history of the chocolate. Eventually you reach a clearing and you enter a small theartre. Here you learn about the history of Bourneville and Cadbury./ I would say that the information was adequate. I personally didn’t require anymore. I also noticed lots of small children.. Well it is chocolate.. I am surprised that they managed to stay quiet. It wasn’t exactly overly engaging.
The next part of the tour and my favourite part by far was the little train ride. Basically I am a fan of themeparks. I probably enjoyed this more than the kids.
The ticket also gives you access to a 4D adventure. (Again.. much more suitable for kids but equally enjoyable for adults)
Other parts of the tour include a small sample of hot melted chocolate with your choice of toppings and the chance to visit a few stands which explain how certain parts of the chocolate are made.
The overall experience of the day I’d probably mark up at around 7. Whilst around half of the attractions have been aimed towards those under 7, the other half are more suited to those with an avid interest in the making and history of chocolate. As I fall into neither of these categories I just happily glided through.
video coming soon 😉
to follow my journey:
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Filmed with Canon G7X, Canon 60D & Iphone6
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