Alfred Herbert Ltd, Gosford Street works

Did anyone who visits this site ever work there? I ask because it was just down the road from me but I can't find any record of it online. My English stepbrother worked there and was once featured on the front cover of the in-house magazine yet few people believe the factory ever existed. The factory itself was set well back from the street with the name on the gates being the only clue as to what lay behind. I can't actually remember its exact location as there are no photographs and no accurate map of the area from the period. By the way, the adverts in that house magazine gave a very strong clue as to where the business was headed. They were already making more money from the import of foreign machine tools than they were from manufacturing their own. My stepbrother saw the writing on the wall and left to join one of Herbert's suppliers, eventually becoming their top representative in the UK. Not bad going for a kid with no education and no real parents!

Hi Dutchman, I can't help you directly with your question, but I've put an extract from a 1937 map below in case there's anything on there that might help you work out where Herbert's was. It's only from a poor quality photocopy, but you can just make out "Telephone Works" (GEC?) and a few other work places.

Thanks Rob. I remember it as being somewhere where the Phoenix foundry is marked on the map but that can't be right as Phoenix was still in business in the 1960s. The factory lower down the road was owned by Pattison's according to planning records. The area in-between the two was heavily bombed during the war and very little of the street frontage survived. I've seen a more modern map and it's not marked on that either.