New Museum book: A vanished world
Following on from Dan Farrell’s histories of Bradford on Avon’s pioneering rubber industry, Riding on rubber and Rubber town, comes Margaret Dobson’s social history of the works and the way it dominated the life of the town.
A vanished world is on sale at Ex Libris bookshop in the Shambles and will be available in the Museum when it...
Read MoreSpencer Moulton tennis balls
.
The George Spencer Moulton rubber company in Bradford on Avon made a wide range of things of rubber, including sports goods. A special line was tennis balls, but their absence from the Museum collection has at last been filled by a donation of a set of three in their original tin container. The base of the tin is embossed “LTA”, which probably means that the balls had been...
Read MoreThe Iron Duke has his hat on
After years of planning, fund-raising and conservation work the historic Iron Duke calender machine has finally been reassembled by Dorothea Restorations of Bristol. It now sits on its concrete plinth next to Kingston House, in Kingston Road.
It sat out in the rain for a few days, but now has its stylish roof of COR-TEN weathering steel that is held up by temporary steel supports. The...
Read MoreNew Booklet: The Domestic Woollen Industry
. The next in our growing series of museum booklets is The Domestic Woollen Industry at Bradford-on-Avon, which has been written by Kenneth Rogers, a well-known expert on the West Wiltshire woollen cloth industry and former Archivist at the Wiltshire Record Office.
Beautifully illustrated, it details the early years of cloth...
Read MoreA Brewery Outing in 1899
.
.
The photograph shows the members of a party from the Newtown brewery of Willkins Brothers & Hudson on a trip to Ilfracombe on the north coast of Devon in July 1899. We haven’t yet found the exact location, but it is pretty reasonable to assume that it is a pub.
It is not...
Read MoreWoollen Cloth Mills and Factories
.
At times there were between 30 and 40 buildings that were engaged in the various processes woollen cloth manufacture in Bradford and the Hundred, ranging from large factories down to small workshops. Many have not survived, of course.
.
Read MoreWinsley Quarries
Winsley, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
.
Murhill Quarries lie to the west of the village of Winsley, on the edge of the plateau level. A larger upper quarry was in 1905 the site for the Winsley Sanatorium, now Avon Park retirement village.
Stone from Murhill was used for the façade of Bristol Temple Meads...
Read MoreWestwood Quarries
Westwood, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire .
The steep hillside above Avoncliff has been extensively quarried for Bath Stone. Underground workings that cover large areas open from adits near the top.
.
Avoncliff Quarry, despite not being worked for a long time, retains...
Read MoreBradford Quarries
.
Stone quarries can be found all round Bradford town, including extensive underground workings.
.
Bridge Street Quarry had an area of open working, with an adit that went into the hillside under St Margaret’s Hill. These workings must have been cut through by...
Read MoreLimpley Stoke Quarries
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
.
Although there are signs of small-scale quarrying around the hill that forms most of Limpley Stoke, the main working is underground. Stoke Quarry is operated by the Bath Stone Group. Recent use of Stoke stone can be seen in the modern Bath Spa building and the facing of the Southgate development in...
Read MoreRoyal Enfield Motorcycles
Westwood and Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
.
.
In June 1941, during the Second World War, part of the Royal Enfield Company moved from Redditch in Worcestershire to old underground stone workings at Westwood Quarry. In the...
Read MoreBeavens’ of Holt Oral History Project
.
The Museum’s Oral History Group is embarking on a project to record memories of the J.&T. Beaven leather and glove factory in Holt. They are hoping to find and interview as many former workers as possible.
Anybody who would like to help should telephone Jenny Arkell on 01225 782061.
See an article about...
Read MoreOld Photographs: The Rubber Works
.
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
.
.
Views of the works of the Spencer Moulton rubber company’s Kingston Mills, mostly from just after the First World War.
Click on the thumbnail...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: the woollen cloth industry
.
Al the toun of Bradeford stondith by clooth-making -John Leland c1540
Much of Bradford’s past prosperity and many of the fine buildings in the town and vicinity were due to the woollen cloth industry. Visitors who have heard...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: the Rubber Industry
Bradford on Avon was the birthplace of a pioneering rubber industry. In 1848 Stephen Moulton, an Englishman living in New York and a friend of Charles Goodyear, came back and set up a factory to apply Goodyear’s discovery of vulcanisation in the redundant Kingston Mill. Moulton merged with a London company later in the 19th century, becoming George...
Read MoreOld photographs: Work
Click on the thumbnail pictures to get a bigger view
The staff of William Dotesio’s printing works outside the building in Silver Street in the 1920s. The firm was first Dotesio & Todd, in the 1890s as printers and account book manufacturers of Bradford and of Lowestoft in Norfolk. In the later 20th century, after William’s death in 1947, it...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Brewing
Click on the thumbnail pictures to get a bigger view
Brewing beer went from the small-scale of brewhouses at the back of the pub to a large industry in Bradford in the 19th century. Three common brewers -those supplying a number of pubs- were operating here at one time.
Click on the thumbnail pictures for a bigger...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: quarrying and stone-masons
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire .
Bradford on Avon Museum is building up a collection of the specialised tools that were used in quarrying stone, usually under the ground, or shaping the stone blocks in the workshop of a banker mason at the quarry and by a builder mason on site.
Read More
The Museum Collection: Iron & brass foundry
Bradford on Avon Museum has a collection of cast iron objects that were made by the three iron foundries that worked in the town. Mostly these are items of street furniture: gully gratings, manhole covers and stop valve covers. Although the Museum is fortunate to have them, they are better displayed in situ in Bradford’s streets. However, they are quickly being...
Read MoreBed Manufacture
Beds were made in a couple of places in the Bradford area. Sawtell’s factory was at the Midlands, in Holt and E.A. Gore was in Broughton Gifford. The industry is now carried on in neighbouring Trowbridge.
Read More