Category Archives: Roads

Aspinall’s Enamel Ltd

Aspinall’s Enamel Ltd expanded in 1914 to add a factory in Bath Road in 1914. It was presumably at the Phipps Bridge Road end, opposite where New Close is today, as shown on this 1952 OS map.

1952 OS map

A varnish works is shown here on the 1894 map.

1894 OS map

Messrs. Aspinall’s Enamel. Ltd., the pioneers of enamel paint making, have found it necessary to increase their productive capacity, and with that view have purchased an old-established varnish-works, in the Bath Road, Mitcham, where they hope to be able to deal more effectively with the increasing demand for their well-known enamel, varnishes, and other specialities. They are retaining their works and offices at New Cross as their headquarters for business communications.

Source: Illustrated London News – Saturday 16 May 1914 from the British Newspaper Archive (subscription required)


Listed in the 1916 phone book as having two numbers in New Cross and one at Bath Road, Mitcham

1916

1916

1918

1918

Declared bankrupt in 1934, as record in the London Gazette.

See also entry in Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.

Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Piggeries

A 1915 outbreak of swine fever gives clues as to where the piggeries were. See London Gazette which mentions the same piggeries as this notice by Surrey County Council:
19150326 Swine Fever
This notice mentions five piggeries in Mitcham affected by swine fever:

  1. Westfield Farm, Western Road, in the occupation of John Cornwall
  2. Seale’s Piggeries, off Lewis Road
  3. Reader’s Piggeries, off Lewis Road
  4. Batsworth Road Allotment Garden
  5. Church Road Allotment Garden

Westfield Farm can be found in the 1915 Kelly directory as being just north of Fountain Place on the west side of Western Road.1910 Westfield Farm map

William Henry Seale, of Orchard Villa, Lewis Road, was bankrupt in 1915.

The location of the Lewis Road piggeries can be obtained from the 1915 Kelly’s Directory, as it describes the properties as from Church Road and after Oakwood and Ashtree Avenues. The 1910 OS Map can be used with an overlay to see theses avenues today and as there are only two properties on Lewis Road in 1910, the piggeries can be identified.
1915 Lewis Road Piggeries

This photo of pigs in the 1950s was taken in Batsworth Road and the tanks in the background are on the W.J. Bush factory.
Batsworth Piggeries1910 Batsworth Road map