Long Shop, Leiston

Starting Point - Saxmundham Station. A 4.3 mile bike ride to Leiston Long Shop Museum

Part of the former works of Leiston traction engine maker Richard Garrett survives as the Long Shop Museum. 

Richard Garrett began as a general engineer in 1778 and by the 1840s specialised in agricultural machinery and portable steam engines. The increasing use of steam in agriculture led to the construction of the Long Shop in 1852. At the Great Exhibition the year before Richard Garrett III picked up ideas from America about production lines where workers specialised on a particular process as the item being worked on passed through the factory. The Long Shop is credited as being the UK's first factory to use the production line system. Boilers would enter the Long Shop on a bogie at one end and be fitted up as they passed along the building's series of bays. Parts would be made upstairs for fitting below. The production line system is often credited to Henry Ford but that would not be for fifty years to come.

The works was connected to the railway at Leiston by a short branch line. Originally wagons were moved by horses. From 1929 to 1962 an Aveling & Porter rail mounted traction engine was used, this was replaced by a battery locomotive made by Electromobile (Leeds) Ltd. More details can be found on leedsengine.info including a picture of the loco at Leiston. There is a scheme to rebuild part of the former rail link.

Following a fire at the works in 1914 the company expanded with a new works next to Leiston railway station. The two works became known as the Top Works (near the station) and Town Works (including the Long Shop).

Between the wars, in the face of a downturn in the industry as war surplus petrol engined machinery flooded the market, Richard Garrett became part of Agricultural and General Engineers. The group included many of the great and the good of traction engine manufacture including Burrell's of Thetford and Aveling & Porter of Rochester. The company diversified in to producing Trolleybuses, machine tools and even kitchen white goods. AGE was wound up in 1932 and the Richard Garrett works was taken over by Beyer Peacock. When Beyer Peacock was wound up in the 1970s there were a number of changes in ownership and the company finally disappeared in 1980.

The Top Works survives, divided in to various industrial units as the Master Lord Industrial Estate while part of the Town works survives as the museum and much of the site has been redeveloped.

More information about the Long Shop Museum can be found on their website.

1927 Map (1) (2) 

Google Maps

The railway to Leiston is now just used for freight to the nearby Sizewell nuclear power plant. I cycled from Saxmundham station to Leiston, a distance of 4.3 miles (though buses are available). This bike ride was just following the main roads to Leiston.

Below - The Long Shop

Below - A Garrett traction engine and threshing machine in the works that built them.

Below - A semi-portable engine.

A plough and various pieces made in the forges at the works.

Below - Some of the workshop tools.

Below - Princess Marina, the traction engine displayed in the works.

Below - The threshing machine. The upper floor where parts would be made up for fitting below can be seen.

Below - More of the workshop tools displayed in the former bays.

Below - A view along the production line from the upper level.

Below - One of the ultimate developments in steam tractors before internal combustion took over, the Suffolk Punch Steam Tractor (named after a breed of shire horse) seen in the showroom.

Below - A Merryweather fire engine on display in the showroom.

Below - A Garrett steam roller.

Below - The Aveling & Porter built Sirapite that originally worked on the works railway.

Below - One of the former works buildings now converted to housing. The town works was bound by Main Street, High Street, Cross Street and Park Hill, the museum occupies the north west corner of this site while new housing has been built to the south of the museum and a few other former works buildings have been repurposed.

Below - The former works offices. After the Top Works was built a new larger office complex called Colonial House was built next to the Top Works and this building also survives.

Below - A former board room table and chairs previously belonging to Beyer Peacock. The BP letters can be seen on the chair backs.

 

Charles Burrell's Works, Thetford

A walk around the former Charles Burrell's St Nicholas Works site in Thetford

Charles Burrell were a maker of traction engines in Thetford. The company's origins were in the 1770s as a forge for making and repairing agricultural tools in the town. They produced a portable steam engine in 1848 and a self propelled engine 8 years later from which many designs of traction engine were developed. They were perhaps best remembered for their showman's engines. After the first world war demand for steam powered machines dropped as huge numbers of military surplus internal combustion powered trucks and other machinery flooded the market. In the face of this decline a number of firms producing such machinery amalgamated to form the Agricultural & General Engineers Group. The Burrell works closed in 1928 with a few final orders for Burrell machinery being completed in the Richard Garrett & Sons works in Leiston.

In 1991 a museum was established on the former Paint Shop of the Burrell works, I visited this a few years back and also looked around some of the other surviving works buildings around it that are now in other uses, or currently between use.

Much more information can be found on the website for the Charles Burrell Museum

Below - Map of the works site from 1882 on display in the museum (click to enlarge).

1905 Map

Google Maps

Below - The former paint shop, now the Charles Burrell Museum.

Below - Burrell 3831 "Queen Mary".

Below - Examples of the machinery in the works, though not originally in this particular building it reproduces a scene from some of the lost works buildings.

Below - An example of a foundry and the tools it used.

Below - Burrell 2479. Note the amount of light allowed into the building, ideal for its purpose as a paint shop and also ideal for displaying items in its current museum use.

Below - Burrel 4061 steam roller from the gallery above.

Below - Burrel 4061 steam roller seen from the paint shop floor.

Below - A living van, variants of these would have accompanied many of the steam engines working on the roads for days on ends whether they were agricultural machines, road rollers or showmans engines hauling travelling fairs.

Below - Looking east along Minstergate with the former paint shop on the right. The buildings on the left are shown on the old map above as wood working shops. The paint shop isn't show on the map as it was built after 1882.

Below - Looking west along Minstergate with the former wood working shop now on the right and the general offices beyond.

Below - A view of the paint shop from the east, no longer possible as new houses have since been built in the empty space here.

Below - Former General Offices building, this building has since been refurbished. Above the door on the right the stone panel reads "St Nicholas Works", though this isn't clear on the picture.

Below - Another building that seems to date from after the 1882 map just west of the general offices buildings.

Below - A plaque on the above building.

Though these buildings along Minstergate survive most of the works has disappeared over the years since it closed. The erecting shop, boiler shop and turnery stood on the site now occupied by a supermarket and its car park.