Manufacturing near me - What used to be made in your back yard

[prepman]

I would love to give that a new home, if you ever want to sell it! 1914 Vickers Mk1......View attachment 388506

Like the touch with the horn....was that to warn the enemy and give them a sporting chance?
Aaaahhhh....what happened to fair play...cricket and all that?

 

[prepman]

Copperopilis .....

The History of Wales

Swansea - ‘Copperopolis'. Recorded production at Swansea's first copper works began on 14th February 1717. This was the Llangyfelach Copperworks near Landore, which had opened the previous month....

www.facebook.com

and Llanwern steelworks hanging by a thread and owned by India.

 

[prepman]

We loved it as kids I was 2 until 5 I think when my mum worked there

My dad used to play bowls and they shut the company rink for housing a few years back

Housing...increasing population and diminishing employment.....what could possibly go wrong?

 

[prepman]

Well it would have been if the bulkheads hadn’t been skimped on...

It was done for cosmetics reasons....

 

[graffian]

Used to have Multico machine tools and Monotype just up the road from me in Salfords, Surrey,

And the place that made paddies motorbikes.
Near me as well.

 

[zeppelin builder]

So who new that Ilford (Fairlop) had a tool manufacturer ... I certainly didn't until today
View attachment 388469

Vanished tool makers: L.A.L. Ltd. (Lehmann-Archer & Lane, Ltd.), Ilford, Essex, England

progress-is-fine.blogspot.com

available in any thread as long as its WHITWORTH

 

[Scalarocco]

Two other big employers in Rochdale back in the day were the Dunlop cotton mill...

Also Woolworths main distribution centre. I had a few family members who worked there...

 

[Morris]

Yup, seen them both in the flesh….

So have I. Done the Sydney bridge walk as well.

 

[Maker]

I've just found out Stuart Turner pumps are made just up the road river from me, in Henley-on-Thames!

 

[bricol]

we dont build the lathes and other machinery we just sell the technology to those countrys that do because we wont back our own manufacturers. everyone wants profits short term

We do!

Within a few miles of where I'm sat at home, working remotely, there is a world reknowned manufacturer of precision grinding machinery - they are currently teaching us a few things in terms of tolerances and measuring.

 

[bricol]

Hang on a minute

I’m all into evidence based discussion

As far as I’m aware your a builder, works in peoples homes, where they make tea

I’ve spent the last 30 years working in other people’s factories, where we make some interesting things

You are so utterly wrong

Exactly!

This week I have been talking to several engineering companies in his vicinity around Halifax, Greetland, Huddersfield - maybe individually not massive, but overall, employing, training and developing a lot of engineers of all types.

 

[awemawson]

Funnily enough I was thinking about Bedford and the places I worked in the 80s, did a lot in the chocolate factory and had access to the seconds shop, soon got bored with it though! used to do a lot at a foundry where they made the big cast backbones for pianos, cant remember where it was now, Jordans Mill where they did the cereals and never ate cereal again after working there! some big old train repair places, the list was endless

@Blobber Was that the mill in Biggleswade or the grain store in Bedford?
I was at school with Bill & Dave Jordan in Bedford, and Dave & I had half shares in an Ariel Square Four which we kept at the grain store creeping out in the dead of night cycling from our boarding house to the Sq 4 and bombing it down the A1 to Biggleswade aged 14 or 15 - goodness knows how we didn't kill ourselves. Though I do understand Dave has subsequently lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and now travels by private helicopter !

 

[bricol]

I would agree, there are some terrific manufacturers in the UK, but why did Dyson (as a "for instance") leave for foreign climes? Where are our machine manufacturers? My pal recently bought a four axis Mill and despite his best efforts, a Chinese machine was eventually purchased. I have bought a Clough42 controller board for my new project and the guy who actually designed and sells the boards publicly appealed for a manufacturer to make them (in the US), nope, made in China, the Western world does not seem capable of simple tasks like this any more, Small production runs, of almost anything, have now become the preserve of the serious amateur.

These guys, the serious amateurs are generally (if they are any good) are now rushed off their feet. This is how Industry was (and still is) built and developed, someone in a shed has an idea, develops it into a product, becomes successful with that product expands and diversifies creating a titan.

Now, and this is crystal ball gazing, we are going to have to change, the pressure from "green" and "sustainable" is not going to go away, it is going to intensify. The government(s) are frightened of upsetting Big Business and dance to their tune right now, to the detriment of the guy who has developed something, in fact to the detriment of all and any small business. This is going to have to change, in fact a friend (who is far smarter than I am) has just been discussing this with me and he believes that sooner or later governments will have to impose a tax on stuff that has a short lifespan or is likely to fall out of fashion in order to repair the damage from repeat manufacturing of the same thing, stuff which is sustainable, like real wood flooring and real wool carpets are once again going to become commonplace and these things are going to be produced locally with very few emissions involved in their transport. Things are going to go full circle and I tend to think he has a point. Real apprenticeships will begin again and hopefully skills will once again have a value.

I'd suggest the likes of Dyson left because Joe Public would buy ten cheap products from Argos than one expensive one that might last - not that I have any experience of Dyson stuff. His job was to run his company to make the most of it - so he is.

The government is already assisting companies to develop stuff for our future - helping with finance and bringing companies with the expertise needed to develop ideas into actual moving metal - I have been involved in two such projects myself, developing contacts with companies, universities, that I would not have done without the Innovate schemes. As a company, we are running several such projects, where we are being assisted, and also where we are team members to assist others to bring their projects into reality, and the "green" and "sustainable" is front and foremost in the requirements for them.

While we don't run our own apprentice school anymore, we train a regular decent intake of them for the future - some turn out well, others . .. maybe not - some have the outlook some on here seem to have - do only what you have been asked to do, only what you are paid to do - anything else is "not my job" - and so they remain at the bottom of the ladder. Others fly . . . our current head of global sales was an apprentice not that many years ago. Similarly for others in our command structure. We aren't the only ones. I speak to guys and lasses who not so long ago in suppliers, customers, who were the ones hovering in the background, learning - sometimes I start to feel ancient as I saw them nervously dealing with me when they were starting to be let loose, and now they are confident, experienced, engineers in their own right.

Its not all doom and gloom.

 

[awemawson]

Gunpowder: There was a gunpowder mill at the end of our field with water powered stones. Stones are still there but not in their original location and the buildings were rebuilt as a house in the early 1060's.

Rather glad it's no longer a going concern as there were several large explosions over the years and some fatalities. They were using locally sourced charcoal, and apparently charcoal was still being made in Petely Wood half a mile from us about 25 yeas ago - apparently it stank and produced a smog. There is still at least one of the big circular pots they used abandoned in the woods.

 

[8ob]

I'd suggest the likes of Dyson left because Joe Public would buy ten cheap products from Argos than one expensive one that might last - not that I have any experience of Dyson stuff. His job was to run his company to make the most of it - so he is.
Its not all doom and gloom.

It is, its way to expensive to set up sustainable manufacturing in the UK, now made much worse with us needing to import most materials and whatever we make here is now is an import to potential foreign customers. Commercial rent,rates,energy, labour costs and the wallowing knee deep in red tape/bull5hit is enough to put anyone off investing in UK industry. That of course all changes if a large wad of UK gov job creating £`s are dangled under someone's nose.Industry/circus like this will only last until the subsidies run out.Probably work out a lot cheaper to leave those who gained the employment sat at home on benefits.

Bob

 

[Blobber]

@Blobber Was that the mill in Biggleswade or the grain store in Bedford?
I was at school with Bill & Dave Jordan in Bedford, and Dave & I had half shares in an Ariel Square Four which we kept at the grain store creeping out in the dead of night cycling from our boarding house to the Sq 4 and bombing it down the A1 to Biggleswade aged 14 or 15 - goodness knows how we didn't kill ourselves. Though I do understand Dave has subsequently lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and now travels by private helicopter !

It must have been the grain store in Bedford, where abouts was it? I can picture it but cant remember the exact location and the fact it was a rodent infested sh*thole!

 

[stuvy]

It must have been the grain store in Bedford, where abouts was it? I can picture it but cant remember the exact location and the fact it was a rodent infested sh*thole!

This one here?

It stinks when you drive past and it’s still full of rats and pigeons

 

[bricol]

It is, its way to expensive to set up sustainable manufacturing in the UK, now made much worse with us needing to import most materials and whatever we make here is now is an import to potential foreign customers. Commercial rent,rates,energy, labour costs and the wallowing knee deep in red tape/bull5hit is enough to put anyone off investing in UK industry. That of course all changes if a large wad of UK gov job creating £`s are dangled under someone's nose.Industry/circus like this will only last until the subsidies run out.Probably work out a lot cheaper to leave those who gained the employment sat at home on benefits.

Bob

Again its not all doom and gloom - we've opened a new massive facility in Leeds, redeveloping an empty site through the pandemic - I'm not keen as its an hour away for me though. Employed a whole load of new people.

Added to the relatively new, but smaller and closer facilty we opened a few years ago. And renting back and redeveloping some other buildings for a vastly expanded goods inwards and spares dept.

If you are selling something someone one wants, then it appears it can still be done.

 

[awemawson]

I may be wrong but I vaguely remeber it was not far from Bedford St Johns railway station. I remember that Bill Jordan (who was the older brother) left school and went on a bit of a hippy session for a few months in California, and came back with the idea that they could do more with their grain than animal feed and flour, and from that was born the nutty bars and breakfast cerials, and Jumbo Frost (who was also in the boarding house) became their production manager. He had a Panther 650 which I envied!

 

[Slowcoach]

I may be wrong but I vaguely remeber it was not far from Bedford St Johns railway station. I remember that Bill Jordan (who was the older brother) left school and went on a bit of a hippy session for a few months in California, and came back with the idea that they could do more with their grain than animal feed and flour, and from that was born the nutty bars and breakfast cerials, and Jumbo Frost (who was also in the boarding house) became their production manager. He had a Panther 650 which I envied!

Yep, it was on mile road, now Richardson milling who have a place on the old Charles king site too.