Banner
Lane 1937 - 2002. RIP
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| These office
complexes at the front of the site housed drawing offices and the experimental shops
of the Standard Motor Company |
Built as a
"Shadow" factory, using War Department finance, immediately before World
War II, Banner Lane was used by the Standard Motor Company to produce huge numbers of Aero
Engines. Immediately after the war, Standard struck an agreement with Harry Ferguson to
built the Ferguson Tractor here and more than 500, 000 were produced. This company
later became Massey Ferguson and more recently "AGCO". Earlier his year
"AGCO" announced it's intention to cease Tractor production at Banner Lane and
transfer it to France and Brazil, and this will happen around the end of 2002.
So, 65 years of production and
yet another piece of Britain's manufacturing heritage is closed, 1200 people are out of
work and the future of the plant is uncertain. No one seems to need manufacturing plants
anymore, so no doubt it will flattened to become another housing estate,
supermarkets or roads going nowhere.
Lynda and I took what will be
the last opportunity for the general public to visit the site and to see the last of
production. The tour included their tractor museum. Such is the nostalgia for all things
vintage tractor that there was a huge turn out of many thousands of people with memories
of the place and the products. I have recorded the day here on the website for tomorrow it
will be gone forever. All the smaller photos can be clicked on to bring up a larger
version, press "back" to return to this page.
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| A view of the
"production line". Here, flywheels, foreground, are being mated to engines,
behind, or they would be, except it is Saturday |
A display by
Ferguson enthusiasts included this Standard 10 van with Ferguson System signwriting |
A later Ferguson
Model tractor in the enthusiasts display |
Unfortunately, my camera didn't
cope very well with internal shots of the factory floor, so I only have one worth
reproducing, that is of Flywheel attachment to engines. There is no "production
line" as such, as old hands told us there was in the fifties. This is presumably
because then there was only one model, but today there seems to be a whole variety of
tractors, so they seem to be produced in "batches" rather than on a
"flow" system. Still, soon there would be no flow at all.
Another interesting point is that these
tractors are so huge now that almost every component has to craned into place, as no one
person could lift these huge castings. The rest of my photos are of the museum and a
display of Ferguson Tractors and equipment put on by "Friends of Ferguson"
It is a shame that the AGCO management could
not see fit to allow the Club to provide a display of Standard Cars to compliment the
Ferguson display, or even allow our cars to park together. As a result several wouldbe
participants refused to attend. If any member of Management would like to respond with a
good reason why not, I will gladly print their response here.
The little "Grey Fergy"
The very first production Standard built Ferguson Tractor, commission number TE1, in the
AGCO museum, produced 1946, spot them all over the world still in service today
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| Somewhere under this
Combine Harvester a littele Grey Fergy is struggling to get out! Can you spot it? |
An example of a
Ferguson System Trailer |
I think that this is
a Seed Drill, but someone will correct me, if not |
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