1942 factory, English Electric Valve Company (EHER 15673)

Factory established about 1942 for the manufacture of electrical valves and magnetrons for radar equipment, factory is in use and remains in good condition.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. The English Electric Valve Company site (TL 6970 0640) is thought to have been established on Waterhouse Lane in about 1942 and was developed to manufacture electrical valves and magnetrons for use in radar equipment. The site is largely concealed from public view by the remaining buildings of Waterhouse Farm, a courtyard steading which was absorbed by the site at an unknown - possibly early date, and by a row of 1930s semidetached houses, present by 1939 (0S Essex NLIV. 14, 1939). On the street front there is a gatehouse on the north side of the site entrance, and a barn, converted and extended for use as a social club, on the south side. The barn, timber-framed and partly weatherboarded, is dated to around 1600 has been more drastically altered and is listed Grade II (No.106, Waterhouse Lane). Other elements of the steading appear to have been drastically altered. Aerial photographs from 1947 onwards give a fuller picture of the site in its early years. The earliest buildings were probably five utilitarian-looking corrugated iron sheds placed behind the farm complex. Two of these had been extended eastwards by 1947, on the evidence of variations in roof colour. A large machine shop with a pitched clerestory roof set at right-angles to these may be contemporary. To the rear of this a three-bay north-lit range was in existence by 1947, but was rapidly extended to five bays and three times its original length between 1949 and 1950. The extension also included a flat-roofed block clasping the north-west angle. Between 1951 and 1955 the five north-lit bays were extended again making them four times their original length), and in the same period a further substantial north-lit range was added to the rear of the corrugated iron sheds. The scale and rapidity of these additions, seen in the context of the still rationed post-war economy, are perhaps an indication of the priority given to Cold War-related defence projects. A number of post-1955 additions to the rear of the site are shown on the 1974 Ordnance Survey map (0S 1:1,250, TL 6906 NE and SE, 1974). <1>. Photographs in NMR Swindon <2>. Material in ERO <3>. The company was involved in the manufacture of electrical components for related Marconi radio and radar factories. Work in the factory included the manufacture of the cavity magnetron - used to generate microwaves for use in radars. Contemporary photographs show glass workshops crossed by air and gas lines for glass blowing - probably for the manufacture of valves and display screens. <4> <5> Additional references <6> <7>