The Bacon Factory , Blisworth, Northamptonshire, UK.

All pictures are presented at relatively low resolution.  There will be hundreds of pictures on this site - there is an economic limit to the webspace available.  The point of this presentation is that you can see for yourself the extent of the collection and return later as the collection expands - as it surely will.  Any interest in copies of a picture at a higher resolution (ie. clarity) should be directed through contacts given in the Blisworth "Round and About" parish council publication or using the comment form on the home page.  In some cases the pictures are not available due to copyright restrictions.  However, permission has been obtained, where possible, to include them here.  Printed below each image is the photographer's name, if known.

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02-01 View from Back Lane near the allotment field. See image 02-08.  The tall gable under the "Blis" of the watermark is the building at the Stoke Road gate (02-05).  A strip of land extending all the way to Back Lane contains various buildings including a boiler house for generating steam used to clean the carcasses and render down lard.

The field in the foreground is that of Home Farm.  Note the severe dip in the field which is due to 19th century ironstone mining.  The Home Farm farmhouse, which opened directly onto the Stoke Road, is hidden by a stack.

The use that the various buildings were put to are described on Page 58 of the 1953 Scrapbook

02-02 View from the Back Lane gate, date unknown.  The roadway into the factory from the Back Way or Back Lane runs through the garden of No.21 Home Close, much to the disgust of the occupant there since the garden is undiggable.

Opposite, there still grows a chestnut tree in one of the gardens of Wellspring.  Actually the tree has sprouted from a large stump which was the chestnut tree known since the 1920s.

 

 
02-02a   An earlier picture showing old pig stys and some other barns.  The chimney which was built in 1924 roughly on the site of Westley's chimney was taken down in around 1955.

Westley's chimney served a boiler for a steam powered corn mill.
02-03 Driver unknown, date c. 1928.

 

 

 

 

02-04 Animals were routinely brought into the bacon factory enclosure by way of Back Lane (now bridleway RD2).  Meat and pies left by the front gates on Stoke Road. 

 

 

 

 
Walter Edwards, dealing with two black pigs. He was foreman at the factory for many years.
02-04a   This bungalow is one of two called Clifton Bungalows which were built for bacon factory employees in the 1920s or 1930s.  They were at the bottom of the field now occupied by Windmill Ave and Wellspring with access from Back Lane and were demolished in 1969 by the developers.

In the front garden of one of them was the chestnut tree mentioned in 02-02.  At the time of the photograph it was occupied by Bob and Rita Oakley.  He worked at the bacon factory and Rita worked in the wine bottling company set up in the mill building by the canal.  Bob also worked at wine bottling for a while and worked at Dalgety's on the Northampton Road.
Perhaps the Oakley family hold the Blisworth record for house moving; 1958-62 they were in the "Westley narrow house" (pictured in 02-05 and 02-06 below), from 1962 to 66 at Clifton Cottages, from 1966 to 69 in one of the two "bacon factory cottages" on Stoke Road (see 30-03 in Stoke Road section).  After that they moved to a house in Connegar Leys and from there into a bungalow in Connegar Leys - making five houses in all.

The daughter in the picture with the Brownie hat is Diana, now Diana Green, who kindly supplied the photograph.
02-04b  A view of the Clifton Bungalows from the path Back Way looking towards the Courteenhall Road.  Note that the council houses built at the corner of Courteenhall Road are not in view.  The date of this picture is therefore some time between about 1925 and 1938.  Presumably the garden fence dips towards the rear of the houses because of the profile of the ironstone cutting created 1890 - 1910.

The far bungalow was called Clifton and the nearer one was called West View (Sylvia Cairns has recently corrected me)

In some ways it would have been better to have left these houses and incorporated them into Wellspring.
02-05   The Stoke Road entrance to the Bacon Factory c. 1930.  The tall house was built in1798 immediately after the Great Fire of Blisworth by Joseph Westley senior.  He and his family continued a baking business at this site until 1895 upon the death of Joseph junior.  Milling was carried out on this site too, until 1879 when another fire prompted Joseph junior to build the large mill by the canal.

 

In 1924 the site was bought by the British Bacon Co. Ltd.
02-06  The tall house pictured just before its demolition in c. 1970, was built by Joseph and Mary Westley in 1799 to replace their house lost in the Great Fire 1798.  It was used by the Westley family until about 1895 when Joseph's grandson, also a Joseph, died having built up a baking and milling business which was crucial to the development of the village.  Since then it was used residentially, particularly by employees of the Blisworth Bacon Company from 1925 until the early 1960's by which time the company had moved its abattoir and meat processing to a site on the Northampton Road.

Footnote:   In the picture above, the semi-detached gable beyond is the front elevation of a building which was the village school until 1913 and became our village hall in 1978.  A moody picture by Peter Newcombe is here

02-07   Charles Edwards with the ladies in the Pie Room.
02-08 In the sequence of demolitions to make room for Buttmead, Eastfield and Home Close, Home farm on the Stoke Road was removed first and the bacon factory buildings were cleared last.  The date is c. 1966 - the view is across fields where Buttmead and Eastfield houses will be built.
02-09  1926 picture of the men at the factory.  Back Row, left to right; C. Edwards, Frank Holding, Mr Barratt, C Holding, Archie Mann, Jack Stewart and Stan Britton.

Front Row, Harry Kendal,  Charles "Wag" Hillyard, ?, Lois Diamond and Ted O'Brian.

 

 

 

02-10  Harry Henshaw (butcher) and Jack Stewart (slaughter-man - son of Joseph).  The date is c.1924 soon after the factory was first opened.  Note the phone number.  Blisworth got its own telephone exchange in 1927.  The sign on the rear of the truck proudly demands: "Buy British Bacon" in a bid to compete with imports from Holland at the time.

Harry was one of three brothers in Blisworth.  He later ran a butcher's shop in Milton Malsor.  The other two brothers were a drayman for Phipp's brewery (Thomas) and a worker at Blisworth house (Jim).

 

 

 
02-11  A1926 picture of the men at the bacon factory.

Back Row, Mr's Jacobs, Bass & Edwards.

Middle Row, H Monk Snr., ?, ?, Stan Britten, Frank Holding, Jack Stewart.

Front Row, F Worrell, Walter Edwards, H. Henshaw

02-12   A 1926 picture of the ladies at the bacon factory.  The quaint little drawing to explain "who was who" is in the unmistakable style of George Freeston.

 
02-13   The Pastry Raisers and Piemaking Ladies, 1955

Left to Right, Rear Row:  Ida Monk, Win. Warren, Mary Harris, Brenda Tarry, Ivy Jones.

Front Row: Nellie Hillyard, Mrs Palmer, Mrs Barratt, Hazel Robinson, Ruth Wootton.

Notable were the clogs which the women wore.  They could be heard most of the day, coming and going, visiting the shops and so on.
02- 14 In January 1967 the bacon company, Buswell's, moved to a site next to Burbidge's garage on the Northampton road beyond the arch.  This was a very popular move because it followed a planning application, which was refused, for the company to expand operations (incl. inconvenience and smells) at the Stoke Road site.