In 1878 the brothers found their new home. They chose a 14½ acre greenfield site between the villages of Stirchley, King's Norton and Selly Oak, about four miles south of central Birmingham. The site comprised a meadow with a cottage and a trout stream - the Bourn. The cottage isn’t there any more, but the pear tree from its garden still stands outside the main Cadbury reception at the Bournville factory. The factory was initially going to be called, Bournbrook, after the cottage and Bournbrook Hall which stood nearby. But instead, 'Bournville' was chosen - combining the name of the stream with 'ville', the French word for town. At Bournville, workers lived in far better conditions than they'd experienced in the crowded slums of the city. The new site had canal, train and road links and a good water supply. There was lots of room to expand, which was lucky, because George’s plans for the future were ambitious. He wanted to build a place full of green spaces, where industrial workers could thrive away from city pollution. 'No man ought to be condemned to live in a place where a rose cannot grow.’ George Cadbury.

These mostly semi-detached houses were well-built and spaced out with ample gardens. Production began at the Cadbury Brothers' 'Bournville factory in a garden' in September 1879. When the workers arrived they found facilities that were simply unknown in Victorian times. There was a field next to the factory where men were encouraged to play cricket and football; a garden and playground for the girls; a kitchen where workers could heat up their meals, and properly heated dressing rooms where they could get changed. As George said, 'If the country is a good place to live in, why not to work in?’ Keen sportsmen, Richard and George encouraged sports and recreations, often playing cricket themselves. Sports facilities grew to include football, hockey and cricket pitches, tennis and squash racquet courts and a bowling green. Gradually women's and men's swimming pools were built and every young boy and girl joining the company was encouraged to become a good swimmer. Work outings to the country were organised together with summer camps for the young boys. Morning prayers and daily bible readings, first started in 1866, helped preserve the family atmosphere and continued for another 50 years, until the workforce grew too large for such an assembly. For workers who still needed to travel to the new factory from their homes in Birmingham, the Cadbury brothers negotiated special workmen's train fares to Bournville’s Stirchley Station with the local railway company. Cadbury duly became famous not just for its prosperity, but also for the advances in conditions and social benefits for its workforce.

George Cadbury had already created some houses for key workers when the Bournville factory was built. Then, in 1893, he bought another 120 acres near the works and started to build houses in line with the ideals of the embryonic Garden City movement. George's wife, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury, planned Bournville Village alongside her husband, and her memoirs tell us how these plans became reality. 'When I first came to Birmingham and we were living at Woodbrooke, morning after morning I would walk across the fields and farmland between our home and the Works planning how a village could be developed, where the roads should run and the type of cottages and buildings.’ Gradually, she realised this dream. Many of the first tenants were men in Mr Cadbury's Adult School Class, who had previously lived in the centre of Birmingham without gardens. Now they enjoyed healthy surroundings and cultivated their gardens, many with their own apple trees.

George Cadbury decided not to go for tunnel-backs because it limited the amount of light in the houses. Instead he chose rectangular cottages, each one with a large garden. In 1895, 143 cottages were built on the land he had bought privately, a total of 140 acres. When building started at Bournville, the basic house type built in the Midlands was the 'tunnel-back'. It was cheap, large-scale housing complying with the Public Health Acts that had condemned 'back-to-back' housing. They were built in long rows with entrances to the back through common passages, built over on upper floors. Though they were an improvement on the previous houses, they didn’t look that attractive - lots of tunnel-backs meant endless rows of dreary monotonous housing. George Cadbury decided not to go for tunnel-backs because it limited the amount of light in the houses. Instead he chose rectangular cottages, each one with a large garden. In 1895, 143 cottages were built on the land he had bought privately, a total of 140 acres. The first houses were built in straight rows with no more than four houses in a terrace, but this soon gave way to more interesting layouts. Bournville was developed to be a 'garden village' and these were the guiding principles... Cottages grouped in pairs, threes or sometimes fours. Groups were set back from tree-lined roads, each house with its own front garden and vegetable garden with fruit trees at the back. All cottages were well built with light airy rooms and good sanitation. A typical cottage had a parlour, living room and kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. Some early houses didn’t have bathrooms, but it was easy to add them later on. Houses should cost at least £150 to build: they were to house 'honest, sober, thrifty workmen, rather than the destitute or very poor'. Building was restricted on each plot to prevent gardens being overshadowed and keep the rural feel. The first houses were sold on leases of 999 years to keep the rural appearance of the district: mortgages were available for would-be purchasers. Bournville’s green environment reflected the aim of George Cadbury that one-tenth of the Estate should be 'laid out and used as parks, recreation grounds and open space.’ It attracted great interest from housing reformers, including the Garden City Association. In fact George Cadbury was instrumental in developing the Garden City Movement along with other reformers, including Sir Ebenezer Howard, who founded the Association in 1900 and was the father of modern town planning. He once said that Bournville gave him the drive to carry out his ideas. The first Garden City, Letchworth, was begun in 1902. Bournville became included within the boundary of the city of Birmingham in 1911, so it’s now a 'garden suburb', like Hampstead Garden Suburb in London.