IT’S a freezing Monday morning, but it’s not hard to imagine the noise, heat and banter of the Ashleigh Works in full swing during its heyday at the beating heart of Redditch’s needle and fish hook making industries.
However those days are long gone and the Ashleigh Works, on the corner of Britten Street and Bromsgrove Road, are on the cusp of being converted into ten apartments.
Inside, amongst all the abandoned machinery – needle pointers more than a century old and still in good working order – Tom Wilkinson, son of owner Vivienne Wilkinson, is showing round auction house buyers keen on snapping up some of the industrial heritage on offer.
However for the needle pointers, forged in Redditch by Edward White, all that awaits is the scrapyard unless someone or some organisation can be found to take at least one of them.
“In many ways its sacrilegious, the machinery is quite beautiful; we have been in touch with Forge Mill Museum but they say they are bursting at the seams and already have examples,” said Tom.
“It is very, very sad but if anyone is interested please come and take a look.”
The business was bought by Tom’s grandfather back in the 1950s when it was T Hessin & Co but he changed the name back to the original manufacturer’s – James Smith & Son’s -which traced its origins in needle making in Redditch back to 1698.
In an inner courtyard high up on the wall is the massive fly wheel of the engine that powered the works, belt driven machinery fed by a drive shaft running just below the ceiling.
It’s all too easy to picture the fate of anyone unlucky enough to get their clothing caught in one of the belts….
Tom agrees: “Health and Safety would have had a field day, there’s no doubt about that.”
However the Wilkinsons did their best to look after their workers – even as the industry moved out to the Far East in the 1970s and staff were laid off they remained loyal to the few who were left, carrrying on a wire cutting business from the Works until the last of the staff, their book keeper Mavis Clements, retired at the age of 91.
“She didn’t want to go, her brain was still as sharp as ever but her eyesight and hearing were failing. Even from her nursing home she was offering to come down and help us,” said Tom.
“Even the guy who operated the pointing machine didn’t retire until he was 83 – there’s a lot of history here.”
So atmospheric is the building that it was used for the hit horror movie The Snarling, shot by Studley film director Pablo Raybould.
Anyone with any interest in the Ashleigh Works and its contents can contact Tom at [email protected]
Help to buy?
EFFORTS have been made to buy the Ashleigh Works by community interest company Point in Time in a bid to convert it into a heritage centre for all of Redditch.
Sharon Burton Fletcher who is behind the venture, had applied to Redditch borough council to get the works listed as a community asset, however this was rejected on the grounds the building fails to ‘further the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community’.
Sharon estimates they need £300,000 to buy them building: “It leaves us looking for a miracle to help us buy the building or else this fantastic asset steeped in the history of Redditch will be lost forever.”
“But miracles do happen – I just hope that this one does.”
If anyone can help with the purchase of the Ashleigh Works, email: [email protected]
