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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Where in Hunt End? Part III

As we discussed in our previous posts on Hunt End, Royal Enfield was born as a company that was spun off from the Givry Needle works that had set up shop in Hunt End in the 1860's. That old setting was later expanded and various aspects of Royal Enfield history took place there. Eventually the place was sold to Dunlop who used it to store tires and it burned down in the 1960's, the only thing left today is the foundation of the perimeter wall. The road on which the site is located is called Enfield Road. However, historian Anne Bradford claims that her house is an exact replica of the original Givry Needle works, and in fact some local historians have mistaken it for them. This in turn sparked her interest in Royal Enfield which led to her book. Now Google Street view allows us a direct frontal view. You can squint your eyes and imagine the origins of Royal Enfield being born in a place like this in 1861. And here is the wall that is left of the buildings where Royal Enfield was born in 1893, long before the modern factory site at Hewell Road had been started, What used to be the factory is now the Hunt End Industrial Estate. One does not enter it from Enfield road, but by a parallel road appropriately called Dunlop road (the Enfield site was sold many times and ended up in the hands of Dunlop when it finally caught fire and burnt to the ground), Here's another view of the wall,

1 comment:

  1. I remember the fire at Dunlop.
    My family owned Fair View at the bottom of Weavers Hill. I feel sick to see how the place looks now and all my childhood memories will never be the same..
    Dave Tipping.
    ( door2doordave @ gmail.com )

    ReplyDelete

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