Terpischore statue fountain at Bournville

A bronze statue called Terpischore by William Bloye, dating to 1932. Near the Bournville Cricket Ground and the Cadbury chocolate factory in Bournville, Birmingham.


Public art: Terpischore

Location: Near Bournville Lane, between the Bournville Cricket Ground and the Cadbury Chocolate Factory (close to the Mondelez building).

Artist:William Bloye

A bronze statue, part of a fountain, made in 1932 by William Bloye. It can be seen from the path between Bournville Lane and Cadbury World.

TerpischoreTerpischore at Cadbury, Bournville Cricket Ground (April 2021). Photography by Elliott Brown

 

It is a bronze figure of the goddess Terpsichore, the Muse of Choral Dance and Song, is represented as a young woman singing and holding a lyre and a coronal of palms. She stands in a large stone bowl decorated with gargoyle spouts, and this is placed in the centre of a ground level stone basin.

TerpischoreTerpischore at Cadbury, Bournville Cricket Ground (April 2009). Photography by Elliott Brown

 

This is the first of Bloye's fountains with female figures, begun in 1932, and is an interpretation of the Spirit of Youth, showing that, as Bloye wrote, "the loveliness of seventeen is centuries old." W.A. Cadbury, a director of the firm, considered that youth had "played a very big part in the creation and progress of this business of our".

TerpischoreTerpischore at Cadbury, Bournville Cricket Ground (April 2009). Photography by Elliott Brown

 

In 1931, Bloye, the 'well-known Birmingham sculptor' was commissioned to produce a fountain for the centenary of the Cadbury factory as a gift from the employees to the firm.

 TerpischoreTerpischore at Cadbury, Bournville Cricket Ground (October 2011). Photography by Elliott Brown

 

The inscription carved around the rim of the pool includes an indirect quotation from a passage in Theodore Dreiser's novel Jennie Gerhardt (published 1911) 'From the employees to the firm of Cadbury in commemoration of their centenary 1831-1931 one hundred times the swallows to the eave'.

TerpischoreTerpischore at Cadbury, Bournville Cricket Ground (March 2023). Photography by Elliott Brown

Project dates

12 Mar 2023 - On-going

Passions

History & heritage, Art; Culture & creativity

Contact

Your Place Your Space

Jonathan Bostock

0121 410 5520
jonathan.bostock@ yourplaceyourspace.com