| Later industry
It was inevitable that industry would develop on the Hay Hall
Estate after World War One. It lay between canal and railway,
with loading facilities on both, and there were already six factories
along the Kings Road axis. There was a labour force in the terraces
of Hay Mills and Acocks Green and the newish suburbs on Greet
Hill, and trains and trams to bring more from the city. By the
later 1930s a complex of more than fifty firms occupied practically
the whole area enclosed by the canal, the railway, and Stockfield
Road. Though some were large concerns such as Rover, Girling,
King Dick, Slumberland, Bakelite, Excelsior, C.W.S., Smiths Crisps,
and Wilmot Breeden, there were also many light engineering works
covering only a half or quarter acre. The Hall itself survived,
on the premises of Reynolds Tubes.
Other areas of industry were the West Greet concentration (Serck,
Brooke Tool, James Cycles, Tangye), Tyseley Hill, the Formans
Road/Weston Lane/Reddings Lane/Olton Boulevard grouping (Lucas,
M.E.M., etc.), and the North Warwickshire line between Shaftmoor
and Hall Green.
The Second World War and the growth of motor-vehicle component
industries brought enormous development of Lucas's (Formans Road,
Spring Road, Shaftmoor Lane) and Wilmot Breeden (Amington Road,
Kings Road). A newcomer, Harmo Industries, became one or the largest
concerns on the Hay Hall Estate. The wrongly-named Tyseley Industrial
Estate of a score of small factories occupied the Wilders site
off Warwick Road, between brook and river, hampered by its narrow
single access, Seeleys Road.
|
