tarboat's photos with the keyword: engineering

The Widnes based firm of Richard White and Sons was well known for its railway and materials handling equipment. A particular speciality was aerial wire ropeways which found a ready market in mines and quarries across Britain.

The former NCB workshops at Duckmanton were provided a supply and repair centre for much of the coal mining activity in the Derbyshire coalfield. The building is now split into industrial units.

Robey & Co Ltd, Canwick Road, Lincoln. The business was renowned for its production of steam road vehicles and stationary engines as well as general engineering. The company was purchased by Babcock International in 1984. In the firm's last years before final closure in February 1988, production was mainly of boilers in oil, gas or solid fuel fired versions which were made in large numbers. This entrance with globe and engineering tools above is thought to date from about 1910.

Tower Works was founded by T.R. Harding in 1864 to make steel pins for carding and combing in the textile industry. In addition to these items the company also developed a range of innovative and advanced industrial instruments, including speed indicators, counters, and gauges. The original buildings, designed by Thomas Shaw, were erected in 1864-6, with the design being heavily influenced by his love for Italian architecture and art. The buildings are listed Grade II and have been converted to apartments.

Virginia Mills, Higher Hillgate, Stockport. This property is sometimes said to be a former cotton mill but it was actually built in the 1890s by Giles Atherton as a hat factory and possibly for the manufacture of hat-making machinery. The initials G A can be seen in the etched glass of some of the ground floor windows.

Snapped from a bus on the outskirts of Beijing. The orange machine is erecting a high speed railway viaduct on the prepared pillars. The rate of progress is astonishing.

Virginia Mills, Higher Hillgate, Stockport. This property is sometimes said to be a former cotton mill but it was actually built in the 1890s by Giles Atherton as a hat factory and possibly for the manufacture of hat-making machinery. The initials G A can be seen in the etched glass of some of the ground floor windows. Giles Atherton was born in 1852. He started off as a hatter and by 1881 was manufacturing hats and employed 30 women and 10 men at premises on Adswood Lane. He became an agent for Yule’s American hat manufacturing machinery. He visited America a number of times and during a visit to New York in the 1890’s, he was offered the patent rights to hat leather stitching machines. He became a J. P., a magistrate and the mayor in 1896, 1897 and 1903. He laid the foundation stone for the Town Hall and also for the north wing of the Infirmary. He was a property owner, with 12 houses on Charles Street, Hillgate and lived at Virginia Villa, Mile End. He died in 1931.

Robey & Co Ltd, Canwick Road, Lincoln. The business was renowned for its production of steam road vehicles and stationary engines as well as general engineering. The company was purchased by Babcock International in 1984. In the firm's last years before final closure in February 1988, production was mainly of boilers in oil, gas or solid fuel fired versions which were made in large numbers. This entrance with globe and engineering tools above is thought to date from about 1910.

The Rose Street Foundry and Engineering Company's head office in Inverness was built in 1893 to the design of architects Ross and Macbeth. Three years later a set of mosaics showing the activities of the company were added to the gables. The building has been empty for some time and the mosaics had deteriorated badly by 2018. Since I took this photo they have been restored and the building is being converted for further use. It is listed Grade B.

Joseph Adamson and Co at Hyde were boilermakers. The company started in partnership by Joseph Adamson and Henry Booth in 1874. The works which continued making boilers to the 1960s and beyond are now a small industrial estate.

Advert for the British Ropeway Engineering Co Ltd. in the 1963 Guide to the Coalfields. By this time I don't think the practical advantages outweighed the capacity and economic considerations and the company was selling few, if any, new ropeway systems in the UK. That said they are still in business today.

J.R. Roscoe & Sons, Engineers & Iron Founders, Little Hulton, Walkden. This business was established by James Roscoe – inventor of the Roscoe Lubricator and proprietor of James Roscoe & Sons of Peel Hall Colliery and New Lester Colliery, Tyldesley. I have been unable to discover exactly when Roscoe's closed.

The construction of the Manchester Airport relief road between the A6 at Hazel Grove and the M56 near the airport requires a large bridge for the Stockport to Buxton railway to cross the new road. The bridge and its abutments had been erected in an adjacent field over the past few months and at Easter 2016 a four day possession was granted to get it all in. Good Friday saw the embankment removed entirely and around lunchtime on Saturday the big move commenced with the bridge and attached abutments jacked onto massive multi-axle self-propelled platforms running on steel plates. Within three hours it was in position for lowering onto prepared concrete pads outside the width of the original embankment, which is where it is seen here. The bridge was already filled with ballast ready for the tracks to be laid. The new embankment ends were to be laid in stone in 150mm layers, each rolled just once before the next layer is added. Trains were running again at 6.00am on Tuesday.

The construction of the Manchester Airport relief road between the A6 at Hazel Grove and the M56 near the airport requires a large bridge for the Stockport to Buxton railway to cross the new road. The bridge and its abutments had been erected in an adjacent field over the past few months and at Easter a four day possession was granted to get it all in. Good Friday saw the embankment removed entirely and around lunchtime on Saturday the big move commenced with the bridge and attached abutments jacked onto massive multi-axle self propelled platforms running on steel plates. Within three hours it was in position for lowering onto prepared concrete pads outside the width of the original embankment, which is where it is seen here. The bridge was already filled with ballast ready for the tracks to be laid. The new embankment ends were to be laid in stone in 150mm layers, each rolled just once before the next layer is added. Trains were running again at 6.00am on Tuesday.

1910 Letterhead for Richard Johnson, Clapham & Morris Ltd manufacturers of a wide range of metal goods at their works in Newton Heath, Manchester. In 1934 the firm relocated to Trafford Park and by the 1950s seems to have been acting as a wholesaler of household goods. The business also seems to have been connected to the ironfounders and wire manufacturer Richard Johnson and Nephew Ltd.

Contractors D G Mills are undertaking piling of a weak section of the Macclesfield Canal embankment at Middlecale. The interlocking heavy duty steel piles are being driven using a Menzi Muck A91 Powerline spider excavator with vibrating piling rig. It pushed this pile into position in less than a minute. Picking it up and getting it into position took rather longer.

Big Nissen huts turn up in so many corners of industry. This one is lurking behind the brick facade at BPS Springs at, Spotland Bridge in Rochdale.

A study in corrugation. Engineering works in Whaley Bridge. Home to D & A Engineers Ltd who have over 30 years experience in machine design and manufacture, automation systems and maintenance.