A tyre builder at work at the Firestone Factory
How Firestone Lost Its Grip On Brentford
The August bank holiday brought a nasty shock to conservations
in Brentford 25 years ago. Over the weekend the famous Firestone
factory on the Great West Rd was suddenly demolished. Moves were
a foot to protect the building through listing and many at the time
believed the demolition had been rushed through to circumvent such
action.
The attractive factory was built in 1928. Firestone set up the plant
to save the cost of shipping tyres from America to Britain. One of
the first purpose built new factories on the Great west Rd, it was
designed by Wallis Gilbert and Brothers and built on what had been
26 acres of orchards.
The Art Deco frontage was set back from the road with lawns in front
and the company's sport ground to the west. The building was a landmark
of Brentford for 50 years, but eventually its fate was sealed by events
across the Atlantic.
Firestone faltered in the 1970s with its steel-braced radial model 500
tyre, which was widely criticised on safety grounds and eventually withdrawn,
plunging the company into millions of dollars of losses. In November 1979
Firestone announced the closure of its Brentford plant and it shut its doors
for the last time in February 1980, making 1,500 workers redundant.
In the last few weeks, a temporary job centre set up inside the factory
succeeded in finding work for a third of the employees, a large proportion
being taken on by London Transport.
The factory stayed empty for some months and was then sold to Trafalgar House.
Hounslow Council and the Department of the Environment were both looking into
listing the building.
However, the developers had other ideas and the impressive frontage was reduced
to rubble over the August bank holiday weekend. Conservationists complained that
the Art Deco architectural features, such as the doorway mosaics, the Egyptian
style entrance and the lamps, had been destroyed first, removing any possibility
of salvage.
In the aftermath of the destruction, the council and DoE both blamed each other
for failing to save the factory. Each authority said the other should have used
emergency powers to prevent work starting.
At the time, Trafalgar House remained unrepentant, denying that the demolition
had been hurried through to beat preservation measures.
Simon Jenkins, deputy chairman of the Thirties Society, commented:" If ever there
was a building from the inter-war period of British architecture that should have
been retained it was this one."
The West Cross development was subsequently built on the site.
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Last Updated: 22nd NOVEMBER 2005
