The Friends of Manor Farm Park, having been awarded funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and in receipt of grants from the W A Cadbury and The Baron Davenport Funds, have created a Trail that celebrates the Manor Farm Park’s heritage and George Cadbury's legacy. The park has a rich and fascinating history, stretching back beyond the time of the Roman occupation. It posses a wide variety of animals, birds, and plants; a brook, a stream, a man-made lake, woodland, and areas of open parkland.
Neolithic sites have been discovered on Cob Lane, behind the Bournville Lane Police Station, and there is evidence of Roman road construction on Swarthmore Road. The park was once part of the Weoley Manor Estate and the Weoley Deer Park, which was still in use until the 16th Century.
During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the land was farmed by several owners until 1893 when it was purchased by George Cadbury and became known as the Manor House Estate which Manor Farm was a part of. Following the death of his wife, Dame Elizabeth Cadbury, in 1951, and in accordance with his Will, the Manor Farm section of his estate was given over to the then, Birmingham Corporation [now Birmingham City Council] to be kept, in trust, as a public park in perpetuity.
So, since 1952, the Birmingham Corporation and now Birmingham City Council, have been the only Trustee of the George Cadbury for Public Parks Trust.
Volunteers involved with the project researched and collated a huge amount of information about the park and its history into various documents. Images have been added to relevant sections of the texts to create the articles in this section of the website; it is also available to park users via QR codes fixed at various places within the park. Moreover, this same documented information is currently being utilized to help develop an educational resource for local schools [this aspect of the overall project will be added to the site when completed, probably as soon as early in 2022].
The project has, so far, added three new wheelchair-accessible picnic tables in the park: produced a short film about the Park & Trail; a hard copy of a Trail Map, showing the location of the ten sites of historic interest along the Manor Farm Park Heritage Trail has been printed as part of a leaflet, delivered to thousands of local residents. QR codes have been created to access the digital information displayed on the website when scanned using smart 'phones or tablets. The QR codes are either affixed to permanent items of park furniture, or to the top of wooden posts erected in the park for that sole purpose.
Duncan Cadbury, former Chair of Bournville Village Trust opened the Trail to the public on the 3rd of July 2021.
Below are the articles the QR codes connect to.
These buildings, originally part of Manor Farm, were constructed in 1895 as part of George and Elizabeth Cadbury’s estate. Although still part of the original land in the George Cadbury for Public Park Trust, the buildings are presently used by Birmingham City Council's Parks and Nurseries Conservation Services as storage by its maintenance depot.
Faint traces of medieval and post-medieval ridge and furrow plowing can be seen in parts of the park, a reminder of the landscape’s distant agricultural history. The ridges and furrows are formed over time as regular plowing patterns gradually moved the soil to form, what looks like waves across the land. From the 16th to the mid-19th Century the land was farmland, and there is evidence of plowing in several areas.
Constructed by George Cadbury as additional facilities for use by the children during their summer parties. Up to fifty children at a time could bathe in the open-air bath; the girls before tea and the boys after. The bath was fed by a continuous flow of water from the nearby stream. Signs of the paddling beach can still be seen on the straight part of Griffins Brook, but the nearby baths have long gone, only a few mounds of clay remain in the plantation.
"The Lake", often and inaccurately referred to as the "fishing pond", was created during the 19th Century when the Merritts Brook flowed through the Great Meadow. The brook was dammed at the north end to form the Lake. It originally featured a boathouse at its southern end, which is marked on the 
George Cadbury (1839-1922) purchased what was then known as New House Farm and New House Farm Manor on 25 January 1888 from brothers George and Henry Adkins, and their sister-in-law, Sarah, who had inherited the property upon the death of Sarah's husband, Francis Adkins, six years previously. Francis had bought the property in 1867.
The western boundary of the park, which separates it from the Shenley Sports Association Sports Ground, is known as the Ancient Hedgerow. 
A short section of the Elan Aqueduct runs under the southern corner of the park. The aqueduct was constructed between 1896 and 1909 to provide a proper drinking water supply for the City of Birmingham. Constructed mainly underground the aqueduct runs 73 miles from the Elan Valley in Mid-Wales to Frankley Reservoir.
This Grade II listed farmhouse, circa 1800, is now a private home; its location in the park and the style of the building give an indication of its former use. Although it has undergone changes over the years, it is, nonetheless, a rare survivor of the area’s agricultural past.
Although the Manor House has been lost to arsonists, its attractive Gate Lodge and stone gate piers (c1896) survive at the entrance into New House Farm Drive, approximately 100 metres towards the City from Manor Farm Park's main entrance on Bristol Road South.