Hi!
So after a visit to the 'The Machinist's House' I went over to have a good explore round the old factory of Federal Mogul Camshafts.
History:
The company announced in May 2007 that it was seeking 70 redundancies in its 140-strong workforce at the long establish-ed engineering premises but it said it would continue to manufacture out of the Elstead factory, supplying customers such as BMW and Perkins.
remaining workers were informed that the factory would almost certainly close in October 2008.
The Elstead works started life at the beginning of the 20th century as Weyburn Engineering, and in recent years was merged to become Weyburn Bartel before being bought by Federal Mogul.
It has always been the only real factory in the village, and it employed about 300 people in 1937 when it manufactured lifeboat engines and parts for cars and aeroplanes.
When soaring asbestos liabilities forced Federal Mogul to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US in 2001, its UK subsidiaries were placed under the control of court appointed administrators.
The Elstead workforce, who carry out precision engineering for a number of high profile clients on the four-acre site, believed the business still had a future, despite the company’s decision to make 70 redundancies.
However, hopes faded after most of the site was sold to a property developer.
The factory is a large site, but most of it has been stripped out. We started off in a small car park outside the old Social club building. The social club was in a sorry state, most of the windows had been smashed. The upstairs floor had holes smashed through the partition wall. There was another set of rooms round the back that had no roof, but we didn't look round that far back.
The next building was the large shop floor building. It was empty other than a few odd piles and rubbish and little side office rooms.
Wondering around a bit more I discovered that everything here was going to apparently kill me
Then exploring the offices and the bits between
Finally, we went into one of the little garage buildings in the back corner and noticed a ladder going up into the roof. We carefully climbed up to see what was up there, and WOW.
In this attic there was a massive pile of paper work. This was all records and data going back to the 1960s. This includes sales ledgers, staff records, sickness records etc. There was piles upon piles of paper work and folders just left.
So after a visit to the 'The Machinist's House' I went over to have a good explore round the old factory of Federal Mogul Camshafts.
History:
The company announced in May 2007 that it was seeking 70 redundancies in its 140-strong workforce at the long establish-ed engineering premises but it said it would continue to manufacture out of the Elstead factory, supplying customers such as BMW and Perkins.
remaining workers were informed that the factory would almost certainly close in October 2008.
The Elstead works started life at the beginning of the 20th century as Weyburn Engineering, and in recent years was merged to become Weyburn Bartel before being bought by Federal Mogul.
It has always been the only real factory in the village, and it employed about 300 people in 1937 when it manufactured lifeboat engines and parts for cars and aeroplanes.
When soaring asbestos liabilities forced Federal Mogul to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US in 2001, its UK subsidiaries were placed under the control of court appointed administrators.
The Elstead workforce, who carry out precision engineering for a number of high profile clients on the four-acre site, believed the business still had a future, despite the company’s decision to make 70 redundancies.
However, hopes faded after most of the site was sold to a property developer.
The factory is a large site, but most of it has been stripped out. We started off in a small car park outside the old Social club building. The social club was in a sorry state, most of the windows had been smashed. The upstairs floor had holes smashed through the partition wall. There was another set of rooms round the back that had no roof, but we didn't look round that far back.
The next building was the large shop floor building. It was empty other than a few odd piles and rubbish and little side office rooms.
Wondering around a bit more I discovered that everything here was going to apparently kill me
Then exploring the offices and the bits between
Finally, we went into one of the little garage buildings in the back corner and noticed a ladder going up into the roof. We carefully climbed up to see what was up there, and WOW.
In this attic there was a massive pile of paper work. This was all records and data going back to the 1960s. This includes sales ledgers, staff records, sickness records etc. There was piles upon piles of paper work and folders just left.
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