History

LOST DORSET NO. 22 POOLE

David Burnett, The Dovecote Press

There is a good chance that one of Sherborne’s dozen or so late 19th century bakers would have been supplied with flour from Belben’s Flour Mill, whose trio of jettied-out upper storeys were a landmark on the Town Quay at Poole, as here in about 1895. Belben’s was one of the first steam-powered mills in the country, with its small fleet of vessels. Once milled and bagged, flour would have reached Sherborne via Stalbridge, the nearest station on the Somerset & Dorset Railway. The postcard reflects Poole’s changing fortunes. The collapse of the wealthy Newfoundland trade left it virtually bankrupt. It was also notoriously corrupt: described by one commentator as ‘nothing but decadence, deterioration and disgust’. The narrow streets behind the Quay were overcrowded slum tenements, prone to disease. The town’s mid-Victorian saviour was the meteoric growth of its eastern neighbour, Bournemouth, whose population rose from 695 in 1851 to 78,674 in 1911. Poole’s merchants were quick to reap the benefits, supplying the building materials needed to fuel Bournemouth’s expansion. The bustle returned to the Quay. As well as ships putting to sea with Purbeck clay for the Staffordshire potteries, many more came alongside laden with grain, timber, and coal.

dovecotepress.com

Lost Dorset: The Towns 1880-1920, the companion volume to Lost Dorset: The Villages and Countryside, is a 220-page large-format hardback, priced £20, and is available locally from Winstone’s Books or directly from the publishers.

OBJECT OF THE MONTH THE COMPANY PLAQUE

Elisabeth Bletsoe, Curator, Sherborne Museum

Arecent donation of archival material from Tetra Pak CPS brought into sharp relief the success of the global phenomenon that was the Sherborne-based firm Wincanton Engineering, as evidenced by the motif on the company plaque pictured.

The story started in 1882 when Charles and Leonard Gates took over their father’s grocery store in Guildford and famously poured all of its liquor stock into the street. They then turned it into a dairy business, which by the turn of the century had rapidly grown into the West Surrey Central Dairy Company, with creameries located throughout England and Ireland including at Wincanton and Sherborne. The addition of powdered milk products led to the creation of the Cow & Gate Brand in 1908, which later merged with United Dairies to become Unigate. Meanwhile, the transportation of raw milk with a return of sterilised churns in a constant smooth process seven days a week became so crucial to operations that a dedicated distribution subsidiary was launched at Sherborne in 1925: Wincanton Transport and Engineering.

The company maintained that the heart of the business lay in their expertise in producing highquality steel fabrications. As well as their pioneering designs for road tankers for bulk milk haulage at the extensive machining facility in South Street, process and storage vessels for milk and dairy products and cheese manufacturing equipment as well as dairy sundries were supplied.

In March 1955 The Western Gazette reported that Wincanton Transport Co. had created the two largest cheese-making vats ever made in this country, for a factory in Scotland. Made of tinned steel to blueprints obtained from New Zealand, the vats were 43ft x 5ft with a capacity of 2400 gallons and believed to be more than twice the size of anything previously used. Logistics proved problematic; a ‘Queen Mary’ articulated trailer had to be deployed and, to prevent traffic congestion, loading operations were undertaken in Culverhayes car park. A party of engineers were afterwards engaged for several hours in welding the legs of the vats to the transporter to ensure safe transit.

The company separated into two branches; the transport side relocating to the former Cow & Gate site in Wincanton. In 1975, a merger occurred between the Engineering branch and DESCO Dairy Supply Ltd, a company which had been instrumental in developing plastic milk crates in the 50s. The Sherborne firm, therefore, continued to meet the needs of the dairy industry under the iconic ‘Flying W’ trademark, employing 150 people from the local area. Rights to the Dynajet range of industrial washing machines were acquired in 1981, allowing diversification into specialist cleaning of metal components for the pharmaceutical, industrial and retail sectors.

In 1997 Wincanton Engineering established a North American market in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and the South Street firm expanded to a site at Coldharbour Business Park the following year. By now they had acquired an international reputation with a client base that included Beechams, Cadbury, Castrol, Nestlé, Mars, Pfizer, Unilever and Glaxo. The firm existed under various iterations and was eventually acquired by Tetra Pak CPS Ltd who had invested heavily in the Sherborne site during the recession. With the recent withdrawal of this company from the town, a long and illustrious chapter in Sherborne’s industrial history has come to a close.

sherbornemuseum.co.uk

Sherborne Museum is open from Tuesday - Saturday 10.30am–4.30pm. Admission is free.

Image courtesy of Sherborne Museum

SHERBORNE SILK MILLS

Part II Cindy Chant

Luckily in 1887, at roughly the time the mill closed, there was in Sherborne a congregational minister, the Reverend Joseph Ogle. He was making his presence known in the town and had soon doubled his congregation, re-seated the Chapel, built a Manse, and extended the school. He had already formed a partnership with a solicitor, Mr Chandler, and was now going to take over the mills and manage them as a going concern. To help him in this operation, he brought in his brother-in-law from Macclesfield, who apparently had some experience in the silk industry. They decided that the mill, rather than continue as a throwing mill, should weave the pure silk into fabric and Ogle even travelled to Switzerland to learn this process.

Soon the silk business was once again thriving, and it must have been very exciting for Sherborne when Queen Victoria ordered two dresses. Our own Sherborne Museum sometimes has displays covering various aspects of the town's silk industry and you can make appointments to view examples of the silk that was produced.

The Rev. Ogle and his partners had not intended anything more than a rescue operation for the mill until it could all be sold as a going concern. This eventually happened in 1907, when it was then bought by A.R. Wright and Co. of Bingley, and it was in their care until 1936 when it was sold again to a Swiss silk weaver, Mr. Spitz. He wanted to avoid paying import duties and so came to set up business, and live in Sherborne, bringing with him various looms and other equipment from Switzerland. But Mr. Spitz very soon got himself into serious financial difficulties, and sadly committed suicide a year later.

So once again the silk mills were on the market and were soon bought by Mr Frederick Marsden, who had been producing rayon fabrics in part of a rented

factory in Coventry. By 1938, the mill was back in full production and financially secure. But the war was looming and now the mill became extra busy weaving silk for parachutes. In 1940/41 Sherborne Mill, amongst other things, was involved with Government work for the admiralty and weaving black silk fabric for making into scarves for our sailors’ uniforms.

However, in 1941, an order was issued that the stocks of real silk in this country could no longer be used for Admiralty scarves. The firms doing this work were informed of the situation and requested to submit samples to the Admiralty, of substitute fabrics made from rayon instead of silk. This of course meant completely redesigning the fabric as regards the warp and weft and types of rayon to be used in each, to emulate a close copy in appearance to the real silk fabric. From 30 samples submitted to the Admiralty, the one chosen was the one submitted by Sherborne Mill. Plastics and fibreglass were becoming the new fashionable material and so it became known as ‘Marsden’s Glass’, and by 1942 Marglass was registered as the trade name. After the war was over, fibreglass became the new material for weaving, and so the future for Sherborne Mill once more, became well established and secure.

Sherborne Mill had been trading under its new name, Marglass, and in 1960 an extension to the ‘finishing factory’ was built with a new weaving shed, enabling more looms to be installed. However, in 1962 the mill was sold again, this time to Courtaulds, another firm who had evolved from silks to fibreglass, and who had large factories in Coventry. They became known as P. D. Interglaze. So now we come to modern times, and in 2013 it was sold again to a Latvian firm and was renamed Valmeira Glass UK Ltd. But its function remains the same.

So let us remember the history and the fact that the land on which the factory now stands is land which originally formed part of the site of John Sharrer’s silk mill! For over 230 years the story of Sherborne’s silk mills is one of huge success, giving employment to Sherborne people, bringing prosperity to the town, and an industry that Sherborne people can be proud of. Valmeira Glass is still there. John Sharrer’s house has now evolved into the Riverside Nursing Home. Vibrant and enterprising independent businesses have settled into the Old Yarn Mills buildings, where once again the future looks bright, continuing an exciting history for the town.

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