yesteryear

This aerial photo, showing its location at the top of Garden Road, alongside Bull Pond Lane, was taken in the 1930s. Furness Avenue is there now.

The firm’s main products were machines which broke down bulky mineral or organic materials into powder.

Chief among these was the “Carter disintegrator”, designed by James Harrison Carter and purchased by farms, factories and mines all over Britain and beyond.

James set up the factory with the help of his chief engineer George Carter whose great-grandson, Tony Woodhouse, has written a detailed article about the firm for the current newsletter of the Dunstable and District Local History Society.

He has computer-enhanced this photo, which belongs to Una Basham, and provided lettering to help identification.

The large building (A) contained assembly and machine shops, a wood/pattern shop and engineer’s stores.

At right angles to this was a second large building (B) in which there was a forge and a foundry.

There were three other buildings: a drawing office with a canteen above (C), a dispatch/spares store (D) and the administration office (E) next to the main gate on Bull Pond Lane.

The factory was the first in Dunstable to make use of a new electric power supply generated in Luton.

It was switched on with great ceremony at the works in December 1925 by the wife of Cecil May, the then millionaire owner of the factory.

> Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.