The Hendon Paper Works commenced business in 1872 producing esparto paper and employed approximately 400 people in the early years of the 20th century. The two paper-machine mill manufactured a wide variety of fine stationery and printing papers, printing games for markets as far away as Vietnam and Venezuela and also papers for the first election in South Africa after apartheid.
The company was acquired in 1962 by “Dominion Tar and Chemical Company†of Canada and was then renamed “Howard Smith, Hendon Ltd. The plant closed in 1980 with the loss of 600 jobs.
Taken over by the Edward Thompson Group in 1981, eleven months later, the mill was back in business producing 100% recycled paper keeping a tradition of paper making alive in Sunderland. Further expansions were made to Richmond Street, but the paper making division at the Ocean Road site closed in 2006 with the loss of 94 jobs. In 2008, most of the paper making machinery was stripped down and shipped across to India.
Parts of the site remain active today, printing bingo type scratchcard tickets… and one of the buildings is currently used for storage.
Plans were drawn up in 2009 for a 40 million project to build 300 homes on the site, but as with a lot of these projects it never came to fruition... due to buyers backing out of deals.
Visited with the usual suspects, thanks a lot for coming along... was good to get this one ticked off and was a lovely place to visit. There is now nothing left of interest for me to explore in Sunderland at the moment! So its back the research drawing board and road trips. Apologies for the pic-heavy report, and the quality of them, which havent turned out as good as they could have.
This place has always held a certain amount of fascination for me over the years, hence the amount of photos.
It seems to still hold the same fascination with others too, as we spotted at least 4 other people wandering about with cameras at various places around the site. Certainly a busy place for a weekday morning.
The original Paper Works from above, 1926
Paper-Making Machine circa 1935
source: searlecanada.org
The space left now after machinery stripped and shipped to India
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