Report - Laura Ashley - Carno - Sept 21

[Bikin Glynn]

Laura Ashley

Laura Ashley (née Mountney) was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She originally made furnishing materials in the 1950s, expanding the business into clothing design and manufacture in the 1960s. The Laura Ashley style is characterised by Romantic designs – often with a 19th-century rural feel – and the use of natural fabrics.

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In 1942, at age 16, she left school and served in the Women's Royal Naval Service. During this period she met engineer Bernard Ashley at a youth club in Wallington. After the war, Bernard was posted to India with the Gurkhas, and the pair corresponded by letter. From 1945 to 1952, she worked as a secretary for the National Federation of Women's Institutes in London, marrying Bernard in 1949.
While working as a secretary and raising her first two children, Ashley undertook some development work for the Women's Institute on quilting. Revisiting the craft she had learnt with her grandmother, she began designing headscarves, napkins, table mats and tea-towels which Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in their attic flat.

Drone shot

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Laura Ashley's first shop was opened at 35 Maengwyn Street, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, in 1961. The Laura Ashley association is commemorated by a small plaque. The shop sold locally produced honey and walking sticks as well as the couple's own products. Here Laura worked with a seamstress to introduce their first forays into fashion, producing smock like shirts and gardening smocks. The family lived above the shop until moving to Carno, Montgomeryshire. They first set up in the vacant social club, but moved in 1967 to the local railway station, which had been closed two years earlier.
The company vacated in 2005

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In 1985, just after her 60th birthday, Laura Ashley fell down the stairs of her daughter's home in the West Midlands and was taken to hospital in Coventry, where she died ten days later of a brain haemorrhage. She is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, in Carno.

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Weird explore this one, a mix of super clean offices to fairly decayed warehouses. Bit of a maze in here but was a really relaxed explore which only got a little sketchy when we walked through a unlocked door into this live unit which was most unexpected! was a guy sitting in a prefab office to our right and we retreated somehow without being seen

Thanks For Looking.​

 

[host]

Great report

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Great report

Thanks dude, dont think its been covered before but may be wrong!

 

[Ferox]

Looks good that mate. Well worth a wander i'd say.
The drone shot is a cracker

 

[clebby]

In pretty good nick considering how long it’s been empty. Nice report

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Looks good that mate. Well worth a wander i'd say.
The drone shot is a cracker

Thanks dude was a pleasant find

 

[Bikin Glynn]

In pretty good nick considering how long it’s been empty. Nice report

U know I was thinking that, there is literally no graff in there, even the white board all seems to of been done by former workers. I guess it's a bit in the middle if nowhere for a lot of people to bother with

 

[Calamity Jane]

Very nice coverage. Especially like the B&W image.

 

[HughieD]

Bit different that. Plenty left behind. Nicely captured mate...

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Very nice coverage. Especially like the B&W image.

Bit different that. Plenty left behind. Nicely captured mate...

thanks guys

 

[Mikeymutt]

That looks like a really interesting explore.

 

[tumbles]

Nice one. Remember driving past this a few times (it’s on the a470?) and wondering.. good to see inside

 

[urbanchemist]

Didn’t know Laura Ashley was Welsh!
I had a quick look round this while passing in 2019 (there was a demolition notice in the window) and thought the bits at the the back were the best.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

That looks like a really interesting explore.

Thanks it was pretty average but glad we stopped.

Nice one. Remember driving past this a few times (it’s on the a470?) and wondering.. good to see inside

Not sure whichever road carno is on lol

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Didn’t know Laura Ashley was Welsh!
I had a quick look round this while passing in 2019 (there was a demolition notice in the window) and thought the bits at the the back were the best.


Is that the same place? dont recognise them rooms but its possible we missed something, as I mentioned it was a bit of a maze, I remember going up some stairs, through a maze of corridors then down some smaller stairs to get to another half of the place!