views

Sunday, November 28, 2010

A mosque in a former Royal Enfield factory site?

Since  the Muslim new year was a couple of days ago, this post seemed appropriate.

We have covered how the Eadie Manufacturing company, created in 1892 and that would later spawn the Enfield Cycle Co in 1893, had a factory in Union Road in Redditch, that would later become Britannia Batteries and even later Alcad. The site was demolished in the 1990's (after an expensive environmental cleanup) and now it is a B&Q Warehouse. At the bottom of the parking lot, facing Union Street  is a fence and some gates that are remnants of the Eadie complex. Interestingly, the building in construction at the right of the picture is the Redditch mosque. The road running down from the roundabout is now called Jinnah road (something that seems to create controversy in certain conservative circles). Looking at a 1945 aerial photograph from Google Earth, it is clear that there were buildings where the mosque is now being built (use the road at the Northeast, Tunnel Drive as a reference), but it is not entirely clear they were part of the Eadie complex.
Here is an artist's conception of the mosque, construction of which is quite advanced by now.
Unfortunately intolerance has already struck. The unfinished mosque was the  victim of an arson attack in 2006.

2 comments:

  1. Hey I grew up near the site and remember the old Alcad building. The outer shell of the mosque is complete, resembling the artist's conception. A recently opened JD wetherspoon pub in the town is named The Royal Enfield. Peace

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Anonymous,

    the pub has not escaped our all-seeing Royal Enfield radar. See here and here.

    Regards
    Jorge

    ReplyDelete

BlogCatalog

Motor Sport Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory