GKN Screws and Fasteners Ltd, Underground Shadow Factory, Birmingham, Urbex
In 1854 J. S. Nettlefold, a Birmingham screw manufacturer, had revolutionized his industry by introducing automated American machinery. Room was needed to house this; Nettlefold, joined by his brother-in-law Joseph Chamberlain, father of the statesman, established the Heath Street Works in Cranford Street, Smethwick. The firm dominated the market by the mid 1860s. In 1880, the year in which it became a limited company, Nettlefolds took over one of its local rivals, the Birmingham Screw Co. The newly acquired works was almost as large as the Heath Street Works and faced it from the opposite bank of the Birmingham Canal.
By the outbreak of the First World War the new company produced over half the screws and about a quarter of the nuts and bolts made in the country. In the late 1960s the headquarters of Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds Ltd., by then an investment company, adjoined the Heath Street Works, a 50-acre complex run by GKN Screws and Fasteners Ltd. and employing some 4,500 people
Thanks For Watching
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A cool location well done
Guest Keen and Nettlefold still exists and have been for a couple of hundred years, they weren't just for the war it was like most factories that did engineering etc were involved in the war effort. My second driving job in 1966 was driving for a metal fasteners company called Davis and Timmins Ltd, they were based in Wood Green North London selling nuts bolts and screws etc.
Cool video , thank you .
The place looks great folks 👍👍❤
@KIRBZVIDS
8 ай бұрын
Thanks mate get down there before it gets demolished mate pm me ill let you know how to get in
@GMT439
8 ай бұрын
@@KIRBZVIDS 23:55 : Some sort of turbine. I suspect Hydro power. I bet there is water above or below this Factory. All Wars are Fake by the way.
Teepol I believe is still made , in the RAF that is what we used as washing up liquid and to wash the Fire Trucks . Of cause by then they came in plastic containers .
@KIRBZVIDS
8 ай бұрын
Good information buddy makes sense guess thay used it as a degreaser mabey ?
@zeberdee1972
8 ай бұрын
@@KIRBZVIDS I would say so it was industrial strength .
@daviddunbar5754
8 ай бұрын
Teepol is indeed an industrial detergent and still used in universities to this day. Buggers your skin up though so always use Marigolds!
Wonder if they made screws and fixings during the war or it was repurposed to something for the war like aircraft parts. I'm sure some people in the area will know the history.
@angelsone-five7912
7 ай бұрын
I very much doubt the locals will know anything as they are all Asian types.
@davem9208
6 ай бұрын
The firm made screws and fixings from its very start. Were these products of use to any of the armed forces during WW2 would have been consequential, as they made them anyway, although they may have made certain items to order.