Guilford Performance Textiles – June 2012
A big thank you goes to Bonesout (formally known as Reknaw – Name changed by De-pole), who gave us the lead.
Luke Takes pictures, from another site also is accredited with thanks for arranging the explore.
Along with Luke plus 2 other non-site members, joined myself on what was to be a great find.
I make no excuses for the delay in putting up this report. I wanted to share this with you all but, our first thought was to protect the place from all the “Scum Elements” out there, but sadly I have heard that in the short space of time since we visited it has go downhill fast and the familiar “Trashed” word now springs to mind.
Our first sight, we were greeted with what looked like yet another Derp type of building and in truth didn’t look very special.
How wrong we were.
The site is huge and there was plenty of interest.
Guilford Performance Textiles
A brief history and edited/quoted from the Guilford website.
Founded in 1946 with two knitting machines and six employees the company soon grew and in the 1950's: Guilford established itself as a major player in the textile industry with two knitting sites and the opening of a sales office. The 1960’s saw the company move into the furniture upholstery market. The 1970's saw the Company become publicly owned and Guilford entered the automotive fabrics market. The 1980’s saw the company grow in size and with a new plant sales rose to $619 Million. During the 1990’s, Guilford achieved world-class performance as automotive industry supplier of the year. In 2005 Guilford was acquired by NY private equity company, Cerberus. 2006 brought global expansion with Guilford France and a sales office in Japan.
All this was soon to change as with many large companies the economic downturn throughout the world made Guilford have to “Cut Its Coat According To Its Cloth” – Sorry for the pun
It was announced in late 2010 that the Plant at Sudbury, Suffolk was to close and with the loss of a 100 employees (surprising it was just this amount due to the size and scale of the site). Sadly, early 2011 saw the closure.
The above image demonstrates what the place might have looked like in its prosperous times. The company had an active camera club and its own darkroom on site. This is a photographed image found within and it looks like there were inter-company competitions with members photographing various factories in and around the area or maybe further afield. I assume it was taken at the plant.
This is how one of those buildings looks now.
A design classic !
The Electrolux Electronic 506 Vacuum Cleaner was stood all alone in one warehouse. This now long since obsolete machine was part of the best types of vacuums Electrolux produced. This model would date to the early 1980’s and would have been a regular in many households up and down the country. Bag changing was made easy with these models and sadly the 560E was the last of its kind and was replaced by the twin turbo range. These models were considered less efficient and wore out quicker. A common strategy used by many companies to generate better turnover of stock.
I digress!
Just as though it was closed for the weekend, the clocks still worked and all the stationary was out. A bit like an office version of the Mary Celeste and one can only imagine that come the end of the last days shift, the apathy and militancy which would have been ever present through the last weeks would have been so overwhelming that the staff would have just “Upped and Left”.
Looking at the image all be it on a wide angle lens, I wonder if the regular “Chav” has now been along and put his fist through the wall and kicked in the panels. Along with his friend who pulls down all the ceilings in these places. There was evidence already of copper wire theft.
There is a sick bay just in case they hurt themselves whilst doing the damage.
The noise from the machinery must have been deafening and I was just the same as the others, curious about the use of this booth. Perhaps it was where they tested the hearing?
Answers on a postcard please…….!
We spent roughly 5 hours wandering around the buildings and even though it may appear a fairly long report I have had to edit the images with brutality. I won’t spare you too many office shots as I am sure you all know what they look like.
We spent quite a bit of time in this area not through our own choice but in true U E fashion we were forced to hide whilst others who we couldn’t work out entered the site. Perhaps Pikey’s or vigilante locals who tried to scare us off I guess we will never know. Having travelled a long way we were not deterred so an office mooch beckoned. We watched from an upper floor as they left and so we carried on. We first heard them bang on the shutters as if to let us know that they knew we were there. I was taking this image at the time. We ran so fast into the offices and that is why you don’t see my reflection in the mirror.
Stock was still in abundance. As too were lots of personal details and database storage. It is a big gripe I have and with no data protection in place, details can soon be accessed. How many times have any of you explored old hospitals and found details pertaining to individuals?
Last but not least we found the belly of the beast.
With all that machinery, came the power source to run the plant. Like a mini Pyestock, the huge generators still had a smell as if they had not long since shut down.
This had to be one of the best trips to date.
If you have got this far then I would like to say thank you for your time in viewing and enduring my ramblings.
A big thank you goes to Bonesout (formally known as Reknaw – Name changed by De-pole), who gave us the lead.
Luke Takes pictures, from another site also is accredited with thanks for arranging the explore.
Along with Luke plus 2 other non-site members, joined myself on what was to be a great find.
I make no excuses for the delay in putting up this report. I wanted to share this with you all but, our first thought was to protect the place from all the “Scum Elements” out there, but sadly I have heard that in the short space of time since we visited it has go downhill fast and the familiar “Trashed” word now springs to mind.
Our first sight, we were greeted with what looked like yet another Derp type of building and in truth didn’t look very special.
How wrong we were.
The site is huge and there was plenty of interest.
Guilford Performance Textiles
A brief history and edited/quoted from the Guilford website.
Founded in 1946 with two knitting machines and six employees the company soon grew and in the 1950's: Guilford established itself as a major player in the textile industry with two knitting sites and the opening of a sales office. The 1960’s saw the company move into the furniture upholstery market. The 1970's saw the Company become publicly owned and Guilford entered the automotive fabrics market. The 1980’s saw the company grow in size and with a new plant sales rose to $619 Million. During the 1990’s, Guilford achieved world-class performance as automotive industry supplier of the year. In 2005 Guilford was acquired by NY private equity company, Cerberus. 2006 brought global expansion with Guilford France and a sales office in Japan.
All this was soon to change as with many large companies the economic downturn throughout the world made Guilford have to “Cut Its Coat According To Its Cloth” – Sorry for the pun
It was announced in late 2010 that the Plant at Sudbury, Suffolk was to close and with the loss of a 100 employees (surprising it was just this amount due to the size and scale of the site). Sadly, early 2011 saw the closure.
The above image demonstrates what the place might have looked like in its prosperous times. The company had an active camera club and its own darkroom on site. This is a photographed image found within and it looks like there were inter-company competitions with members photographing various factories in and around the area or maybe further afield. I assume it was taken at the plant.
This is how one of those buildings looks now.
A design classic !
The Electrolux Electronic 506 Vacuum Cleaner was stood all alone in one warehouse. This now long since obsolete machine was part of the best types of vacuums Electrolux produced. This model would date to the early 1980’s and would have been a regular in many households up and down the country. Bag changing was made easy with these models and sadly the 560E was the last of its kind and was replaced by the twin turbo range. These models were considered less efficient and wore out quicker. A common strategy used by many companies to generate better turnover of stock.
I digress!
Just as though it was closed for the weekend, the clocks still worked and all the stationary was out. A bit like an office version of the Mary Celeste and one can only imagine that come the end of the last days shift, the apathy and militancy which would have been ever present through the last weeks would have been so overwhelming that the staff would have just “Upped and Left”.
Looking at the image all be it on a wide angle lens, I wonder if the regular “Chav” has now been along and put his fist through the wall and kicked in the panels. Along with his friend who pulls down all the ceilings in these places. There was evidence already of copper wire theft.
There is a sick bay just in case they hurt themselves whilst doing the damage.
The noise from the machinery must have been deafening and I was just the same as the others, curious about the use of this booth. Perhaps it was where they tested the hearing?
Answers on a postcard please…….!
We spent roughly 5 hours wandering around the buildings and even though it may appear a fairly long report I have had to edit the images with brutality. I won’t spare you too many office shots as I am sure you all know what they look like.
We spent quite a bit of time in this area not through our own choice but in true U E fashion we were forced to hide whilst others who we couldn’t work out entered the site. Perhaps Pikey’s or vigilante locals who tried to scare us off I guess we will never know. Having travelled a long way we were not deterred so an office mooch beckoned. We watched from an upper floor as they left and so we carried on. We first heard them bang on the shutters as if to let us know that they knew we were there. I was taking this image at the time. We ran so fast into the offices and that is why you don’t see my reflection in the mirror.
Stock was still in abundance. As too were lots of personal details and database storage. It is a big gripe I have and with no data protection in place, details can soon be accessed. How many times have any of you explored old hospitals and found details pertaining to individuals?
Last but not least we found the belly of the beast.
With all that machinery, came the power source to run the plant. Like a mini Pyestock, the huge generators still had a smell as if they had not long since shut down.
This had to be one of the best trips to date.
If you have got this far then I would like to say thank you for your time in viewing and enduring my ramblings.
