Barrington Cement Works

Barrington Cement Works

History of Barrington Cement Works

1912 Dreadnought Portland Cement Co started construction

1924 Eastwoods took over site

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1927 10 11
The Prime Minister is expected to visit Barrington to open the new cement works. A distinguished company of about 100 will journey from London by special saloon carriages and the light railway direct to the works. The new works are already turning out great quantities of cement and when the second kiln is complete will be one of the largest cement works north of the Thames. About 200 men will be employed there permanently and it is expected that from a country village Barrington soon will be transformed into something like a small industrial town

1927 10 13
Sir – I see that Mr Baldwin is so delighted to find an undertaking which is employing more men rather than turning them off, that he is coming to open the new cement works in Barrington. I wonder if he will ask where the 200 men who are going to be employed are to be housed. I doubt if 20 houses have been built in neighbouring villages since the war and there is a long waiting list of people not connected with the works. A large proportion of the men at present employed are being lodged in houses where there is no proper accommodation for them, and if another hundred men are to be taken on shortly the congestion will be appalling – G.T. Garratt, Barrington (Mike Petty)

1929 11 05
Barrington Light Railway Company was an independent company entirely disassociated from the cement works except in business transactions. The railway originally belonged to the Dreadnought Cement Works Company which went into liquidation. They bought the railway but the works were sold separately. It owned engines and trucks and worked in co-operation with the L. & N.E.R. The line was a mile and a quarter long with a full gauge track. Their terminus was the entrance to the works; the line continued into sidings, but was maintained by the Cement Company, a Rating appeal was told.

1930 05 13
Messrs Chivers told the court that they had been growing fruit at Barrington for more than 20 years. They had two plantations growing raspberries, greengages and Victoria plums near the summit of a hill. In 1927 the Cement Company started a new works half-a-mile to the south and soon their pickers started to experience unpleasant smells. The raspberry crop was scorched and shrivelled by dust and the same thing happened to the plums. It was caused by considerable quantities of dust from the company’s new chimney stacks.

1930 07 04
Chivers’ claims that their raspberry and plum crops had been damaged by dust from Barrington cement works was upheld by the court. One side of the berries had been scorched as if touched by some caustic substance. There was a visible film of dust coming over from the works which stung the eye and could be smelled and tasted. The works were quite ready to purchase the two fields and pay compensation. 30 07 04 –b

1931 12 18
Messrs Eastwoods own 160 acres of first-class cement-making land at Barrington. We saw the marl being bitten out of the pit by a giant mechanical shovel and watched the complete process through to the final product. In the grinding mills the atmosphere was thick with cement dust and the din appalling. When we came out of this Bedlam of noise we were covered in cement dust, luckily it does not stick and most had vanished before we got to the final process, the bagging. 31 12 18a

1952 10 13
Six coachloads of people travelled from Barrington to the Victoria Restaurant, Cambridge to have dinner. They were employees of Eastwoods Cement Ltd who were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the opening of the works. Each guest went home with a gift – a silver hairbrush for the men, a powder compact for the ladies. Some of the cement workers missed the dinner through having to be on duty. They will be treated to another function later and a telegram of good wishes was sent to them on Saturday night.

1953 08 07
A tour of the extensive orchards of Messrs Eastwood’s at Barrington was given by Farm Manager, Mr A.S. Baker to demonstrate important operations in modern orchard management such as pruning, soil- management and grassing-down. The visitors were impressed by the very heavy crop of apples, plums and greengages and on the improvements made on the fruit farm as a whole. At the end of the tour refreshments were served in the new packing shed

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1963 Rugby Cement took over

c.2010: Cement works closed

(Barrington by R & M Jude)