Davy United & Co (Davy Markham) Darnall Works, Sheffield, June 2018
Introduction:
It's been a while since I last had chance to go out and follow up a lead of mine with the constant long periods of work away I've either been too busy or too tired... Fortunately a couple of weeks leave gave me the opportunity to follow up this one, a quick message sent over to @AndyK and we found ourselves in Sheffield in the early hours hoping for epic. We were not disappointed, Sheffield's bringing home the goods bigtime once again.
If you like your industry, you're gonna love this.
History:
The Davy Company's a pretty big name in British Industry, I'm sure you'll of heard of them, especially if you've been in the pursuit of the British steel industry over recent years. Remember the blast furnace at Redcar? Sure you do, well that's a product of one of the many branches of the Davy Co. Davy Mckee. The River Don Engine at Kelham Island? Yeah another piece of Davy excellence, and that's just a couple of items of interest the list goes on. Although perhaps not as famous a name as perhaps say Parsons, or English Electric, the Davy United Darnall Works, for me anyway, really was somewhere to get excited about. When I heard of the imminent closure of Darnall from a worker their in May, I knew it was going to have to be prioritised right away.
The Davy Brothers Co. Was founded in Sheffield in 1830, the company was set up to deal with the heavy machining and fabrication of metals as well as specialist engineering projects.
In 1921 the Darnall Works, Sheffield opened. The works as you'll see by comparison in the photo below from 1938 really hasn't changed too much at all since then.
In 1937 the company changed it's name to The Davy United Engineering Co.
1959 Holding company formed: Davy-United, within which Davy and United Engineering Co operated with 3 divisions: manufacture of machinery, construction of steelworks and plant for various steel processes. Other subsidiaries were Davy and United Roll Foundry Ltd and Davy and United Instruments Ltd.
Much continued the same until the 1998 closure of the Markham Company, another important name in British Industry, colliery explorers will no doubt be familiar with Markham Winding Engines. After closure, Davy took on Markham moving Markham's business from Chesterfield to Darnall and becoming Davy Markham.
May 2018 Darnall Works closes down just shy of almost 100 years service to industry leaving 100 men without work.
Some absolute monster machinery in here, just look at that lathe... phwaorrr
Drop Forge, and one of the many epic Cowans of Sheldon 60's era gantry cranes.
Machinary on an epic scale, the majority of it still switched on as well, it certainly wasn't a quiet explore, I was half expecting the workers to start clocking in at 08:00!
And the tools for the job...
The Department of Nutters!
Pretty Standard really... Note the tunnel boring machine in one of the picture frames, a project of the company's
Ladies...
I just couldn't get enough of the Hall shots, those cranes are absolute beauties…
Tool Stands and Work Spaces throughout the Works....
Planning!
Portraits are the way forward, period.
Overhead Gantry for access to cranes...
Crane Attactments
And that's yer lot...
We did take a look at the offices and I'll pop a phone shot up in the comments later, they're ultra modern though and really not worth a look in...
I hope you enjoyed this report as much as I enjoyed making it, definitely go here, I'd probably say it's one of my better finds to date and an important one for industry lovers.
Cheers,
TAW
Introduction:
It's been a while since I last had chance to go out and follow up a lead of mine with the constant long periods of work away I've either been too busy or too tired... Fortunately a couple of weeks leave gave me the opportunity to follow up this one, a quick message sent over to @AndyK and we found ourselves in Sheffield in the early hours hoping for epic. We were not disappointed, Sheffield's bringing home the goods bigtime once again.
If you like your industry, you're gonna love this.
History:
The Davy Company's a pretty big name in British Industry, I'm sure you'll of heard of them, especially if you've been in the pursuit of the British steel industry over recent years. Remember the blast furnace at Redcar? Sure you do, well that's a product of one of the many branches of the Davy Co. Davy Mckee. The River Don Engine at Kelham Island? Yeah another piece of Davy excellence, and that's just a couple of items of interest the list goes on. Although perhaps not as famous a name as perhaps say Parsons, or English Electric, the Davy United Darnall Works, for me anyway, really was somewhere to get excited about. When I heard of the imminent closure of Darnall from a worker their in May, I knew it was going to have to be prioritised right away.
The Davy Brothers Co. Was founded in Sheffield in 1830, the company was set up to deal with the heavy machining and fabrication of metals as well as specialist engineering projects.
In 1921 the Darnall Works, Sheffield opened. The works as you'll see by comparison in the photo below from 1938 really hasn't changed too much at all since then.
In 1937 the company changed it's name to The Davy United Engineering Co.
1959 Holding company formed: Davy-United, within which Davy and United Engineering Co operated with 3 divisions: manufacture of machinery, construction of steelworks and plant for various steel processes. Other subsidiaries were Davy and United Roll Foundry Ltd and Davy and United Instruments Ltd.
Much continued the same until the 1998 closure of the Markham Company, another important name in British Industry, colliery explorers will no doubt be familiar with Markham Winding Engines. After closure, Davy took on Markham moving Markham's business from Chesterfield to Darnall and becoming Davy Markham.
May 2018 Darnall Works closes down just shy of almost 100 years service to industry leaving 100 men without work.
Some absolute monster machinery in here, just look at that lathe... phwaorrr
Drop Forge, and one of the many epic Cowans of Sheldon 60's era gantry cranes.
Machinary on an epic scale, the majority of it still switched on as well, it certainly wasn't a quiet explore, I was half expecting the workers to start clocking in at 08:00!
And the tools for the job...
The Department of Nutters!
Pretty Standard really... Note the tunnel boring machine in one of the picture frames, a project of the company's
Ladies...
I just couldn't get enough of the Hall shots, those cranes are absolute beauties…
Tool Stands and Work Spaces throughout the Works....
Planning!
Portraits are the way forward, period.
Overhead Gantry for access to cranes...
Crane Attactments
And that's yer lot...
We did take a look at the offices and I'll pop a phone shot up in the comments later, they're ultra modern though and really not worth a look in...
I hope you enjoyed this report as much as I enjoyed making it, definitely go here, I'd probably say it's one of my better finds to date and an important one for industry lovers.
Cheers,
TAW
