Report - Ewart Chain, Derby – December 2021

[MotionlessMike]

Great photos. I thought the name was familiar. They made the conveyor chains for Hartshead power station

Missed that one at the time Alley. Must've been a hell of a conveyor, interesting to see their name in the concrete over the stairs too!

 

[briyeo]

I have viewed quite a few of these reports and always find them interesting. This one was especially interesting to me as I worked here up to September 2015 when I retired. I actually worked here for 48 years, it was quite common for people at Ewart Chainbelt to be long service until the later years when there were multiple redundancies on a regular basis. Nearly all the heavy presses were made by the Butterley Company of Ripley 150 tons up to 350 tons some over 50 years old by the end. There was a large Russian press that was 600 tons. The oldest machine there was around 140 years old I believe, it made cotter pins out of coils of round steel. I worked in the Toolroom that was up some stairs at the back of the building next to the railway, the offices ended up there too after the separate office building had been demolished. The end of an era, very sad, production had been moved to China mostly, the Chinese chain was lower quality and gave the company some problems, so much so that some customers wouldn't have it and insisted on British made products. That kept the factory going probably longer than planned. Ewart are still going of course in another guise, but with no UK production. Thanks for the images MotionlessMike, it was a pity you didn't manage to get upstairs to the Toolroom, I wonder how they got our machines down from there, some were quite heavy. Photo of the Toolroom attached.

 

[MotionlessMike]

I have viewed quite a few of these reports and always find them interesting. This one was especially interesting to me as I worked here up to September 2015 when I retired. I actually worked here for 48 years, it was quite common for people at Ewart Chainbelt to be long service until the later years when there were multiple redundancies on a regular basis. Nearly all the heavy presses were made by the Butterley Company of Ripley 150 tons up to 350 tons some over 50 years old by the end. There was a large Russian press that was 600 tons. The oldest machine there was around 140 years old I believe, it made cotter pins out of coils of round steel. I worked in the Toolroom that was up some stairs at the back of the building next to the railway, the offices ended up there too after the separate office building had been demolished. The end of an era, very sad, production had been moved to China mostly, the Chinese chain was lower quality and gave the company some problems, so much so that some customers wouldn't have it and insisted on British made products. That kept the factory going probably longer than planned. Ewart are still going of course in another guise, but with no UK production. Thanks for the images MotionlessMike, it was a pity you didn't manage to get upstairs to the Toolroom, I wonder how they got our machines down from there, some were quite heavy. Photo of the Toolroom attached.

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting. Shame I didn't get a look before the place was emptied out because it sounds like there was some goodies in there to see!

I did go upstairs into the toolroom / offices area but unfortunately it was just one enormous stripped out space so didn't take any pictures of it.

 

[briyeo]

Interesting stuff, thanks for posting. Shame I didn't get a look before the place was emptied out because it sounds like there was some goodies in there to see!

I did go upstairs into the toolroom / offices area but unfortunately it was just one enormous stripped out space so didn't take any pictures of it.

I tried to add a photo of the Toolroom as it was just before I left but it didn't work. There was a large lift up to that floor originally, it had a notice inside saying limited to 72 people. It was used for moving tons of cast chain links made at Ley's up there for storage, it could take a good sized fork lift truck with ease.