Went to the talk at the Gunmakers Arms on Tuesday night by Mark Davies, chairman of the Chance Heritage Trust. It was an interesting talk, and the the beer was good.
Mark gave a brief history of the firm , and its subsequent takeover by Pilkingtons. I had not realised that the takeover had been slowly planned and forced on Chance over a number of years, after problems with payment by the government for work done on optical glass for the war effort had not been forthcoming. (of course nowadays, if the money had been owed to an american firm who wanted to take over part of the NHS, then money would have been easily forthcoming). There are apparently a large volume of papers in the Sandwell archives , which have only partly been catalogued, but are known to contain a mass of data on the firm, including things like accident reports, order books and much else. This material is there apparently thanks to Nippon Sheet Glass. Pilkingtons had been reluctant to allow the archives access to the material, but when Nippon in turn took over Pilkingtons (sauce for the goose) they told them to hand it all over to the archives. Although I knew a lot of the range of glass they developed, had not realised that they invented fibreglass, but then abandonned it as no market then could be found for it. The firm also made foghorns, one of which is in th Sandwell store, and might well be incorporated into the project (I suggested it could be operated to announce the opening of the rejuvenated site - though probably everyone within half a mile would hav eto wear earplugs). We were shown a blueprint plan of one commission made to the firm (& recently purchased on e-bay) by a "interplanetary psychic", who did things like investigating hauntings etc, for a lens that could send a light message to Mars ! Needless to say it got no further than the bluepint stage, though, judging by their other successes, I guess it might have done the job well. The exact scheme for the site that will emerge is not yet fixed. It will be a mixture of heritage, teaching and apprenticeships, space for startup companies, and leisure activities. New things are being discovered all the time, a large plan of the position of all the facilities (gas, water electicity etc) was found in some rubbish recently, and an old worker informed them that the bridge over the canal, which connected the remaining site to the site on the opposite bank, contained a tunnel . Heritage England had paid Birmingham university good money to survey all the tunnels, but they had apparently missed out that one !
Whatever is done will have to be started soon. One of the buildings on the canal side is in a very precarious condition , and one has already collapsed. The skip firm that has been occupying part of the site had applied fro a "temporary" extension of 11 years , but the application was met with an enormous number of objections , from all over the world, and was rejected, so will move out in november (though will probably leave their buildings, illegally erected on a listed historical monument). this will enable archeological investigations on that part of the site, whcih include a filled in canal arm . Heritage England were a bit iffy about the suggestion that there might be a canal basin with leisure activities, until they were shown a map showing athe canal arm on that part of the site.
Next week the site is open to viasitors, but all places are now booked up., and it is not clear if their will be further opportunities before rejuvenation , as insurance for these occasions only is being provided by Historic england, and further visits would necessitate individual wavers in case of accident.
Posted today on Instagram as @petedaviesphoto
