Courtaulds

Courtaulds Viscose Rayon Plant 1939-45

Hi all Demolition work underway at Courtaulds factory site in Foleshill This reminds me of an episode of "Some Mothers Do Ave Em' Hey, that was my office for many years.

Not much left of what once was a proud industrial city.

Ok, I think this may be wrong? The bigger of the two chimneys is not the one described in the article. The tall one was near Pridmore Road to the left of the original gatehouse. I worked in main works for several years and saw inside the chimney stack around 1983. The chimney in the picture is indeed near Amtico but was a good 80 ft smaller than the Pridmore road site chimney. I saw the big chimney being maintained in about 1980. Fred Dibnah type steeple jacks were there for a good couple of months. The old picture is probably taken from where the new houses were build in the 1990s. (Off Guild Road and Pridmore Road. I remember the old school as I walked past it when I went to Mattersons to get supplies. Not been on that estate for many years but I'm sure there must be an old map showing the road where the pic was taken from. The main works site had Courtaulds Grafil, Courlose, Amtico factory 1 and Main works maintenance workshops/ stores. There was an underground network where industrial pipers were accessible. The pump house next to the canal Next to Courlose was a cooling tower and pool. Courtaulds Grafil had 2 factories for Carbon Fibre production. Factory 1 was linked to Amtico which backed on to Kingfield Road. Factory 2 linked next to SAF which was set back off the Foleshill Rd. Behind the main clock tower/ directors offices and over a two way road to Grafil and SAF. Enterprise House is the old Telephone exchange. I worked for Courtaulds for 14 years in total. Lockhurst Lane, Courtaulds Engineering, Amtico, Courtaulds Grafil, Main works, Courtaulds Rearch were all well known to me. I regularly went over the Pridmore Road Bridge to Courtauld Research workshops and also the research buildings. I worked on the snatch land rovers over the Engineering side in the early 90's, Amtico from about 94-99.

Link 1 Where the old pridmore road gatehouse was. So the big chimney was a where the Toolstation carpark is now. +/-15 yards Link 2 Edited by Midland Red, 11th Sep 2015 4:55 pm (Links clarified)

Gib - it may be possible that you haven't read the complete thread, as around post no.62 what you state above regarding the chimneys is, I think, confirmed

Hi all A few photos of Courtaulds

Thanks Philip - pity Trinity Mirror couldn't get the captions correct

Indeed! The television aerials in the rooftop picture suggest it was taken in 1963 rather than 1973: "View of the factory above the Coventry rooftops in June 1973"

Those Telegraph pictures are surely the plant that was further down the Foleshill Road aren't they? I don't ever remember a tunnel over the road at Little Heath.

Hi & thank you both, Newspapers are going through hard times & cannot afford highly skilled journalists these days. Just by reading current news events shows a lack of basic geography, misquoting districts & so on. Sad, as in the past our own local newspaper was generally very reliable for reporting facts. A bit like banks these days too, where your are lucky to find a qualified accountant on site! PS. On the subject of mistakes of news reporting, Sky news has today described the recent bus tragedy, in which two people died, stated that the accident took place in Leamington. So much for accurate reporting!

Courtaulds, Little Heath, behind the Wheatsheaf, had a greenhouse-looking building inside the factory, inside the glasshouse were upright pipes that sprayed water through small screwed-in spray filters that damped down the acetate air, every so often the house was shut down. The operator climbed in, replaced blocked filters, the bucket of blocked filters were then cleaned by a fluid and brushing. Once the operator dropped by accident a whole packet of Wrigleys Spearmint into the fluid, the following day the factory had a pleasant smell of spearmint in the air, the workers didn't mind but management wasn't pleased.

Hi all Just one picture for now. The windows on the first floor at various points in time, were occupied as follows. Over the entrance door was the personnel manager Mr. K Reynolds Next right. Mr T Frazer MD, later became office to Manufacturing Director Mr R Knibbs 2nd right. Mr A Bensley Co Secretary, became Mr J Prance 3rd right Secretaries which later became the office of the Finance Director, Mr G F Thomas 4th right Mr H Branton Manufacturing Director 1960s 5th right Mr H Branton The ground floor Next to entrance door on right. Reception 2nd Post Room 3rd Finance that housed me, until I was shoved next to the car-park. 4th Finance 5th Finance & Cash Office The visible added top floor, housed the architects. That was headed up latterly by Director Mr J Harvey. The offices to the left of the entrance door (out of site from picture) were the various design offices. Although they changed over the years they were at some point, Ground floor Electrical & general services. 1st floor Celon design 2nd floor Instrumentation 3rd floor Plant In addition, further design offices were located behind the main building, as well as production engineers, plastics & joinery, & the Spinnerette production department. What ever criticisms some may have had about policies & so on, my hard experience with the company was that those who I mention were all hard grafters. My knowledge of these company folk, along with so many more, was as a result of me always after signatures, or attending meetings of one sort or another. Over three hundred people were employed here by CEL or Courtaulds Engineering Ltd to give it its correct name in 1965ish. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Courtaulds Ltd, later Plc. Web-site Current site, still in business. In Partnership, current.

Hi all Work in progress, or A/C 4400, for anyone that knows their accounting codes. I was travelling on the 56 when recording these pictures.