Where's this Hurricane factory?

What a fascinating piece of film, thanks for posting it 🙂

Thankfully the Flightshed itself still stands and is now used by the current Chinese incumbents on part of the site.

SAIC MG have been using it mainly for engine testing (as it was during the days of Rover), but they are in the process of setting up a brand new engine test facility in part of the L-shaped building near to the flight shed, and have said they will no longer require use of the flight shed – they are due to hand it over to St Modwen in April next year, so its future may have a very large question mark over it (particularly bearing in mind that every other building handed back has now been flattened!).

The factory site will then be almost entirely contained within the the old peri track of Cofton Hackett airfield.

If anyone is interested, there is a fair bit of info on aircraft associated with Austin/Longbridge on http://www.austinmemories.com/

The ‘nose-down’ attitude is what I was alluding to. (although, I was strictly being ‘artistically’ critical)

does it not resemble something more like a Whitley/Stirling crossbreed?

Definitely meant to be a Stirling, but it does have the nose-down ‘sit’ of a Whitley and those cowlings look far more like an early Whitley’s Armstrong-Siddeley Tigers than a Stirling’s Hercules. I can see what contrailjj is getting at.

Just catching back up with this thread after being away for the weekend. Glad my musings were of some interest, as were the pictures.
As far as I know the airfield was known as ‘Cofton Hackett’ which was the name of the nearest village to the aircraft factory. The main Austin manufacturing base being the other side of this at Longbridge.
Sadly the whole of East Works was demolished over the last year or so, in the aftermath of the collapse of Rover Cars and subsiquent site redevelopment, so the place were some 2700 aircraft including, Battles, Hurricanes, Stirlings and Lancasters were made is now but a memory :(. Thankfully the Flightshed itself still stands and is now used by the current Chinese incumbents on part of the site.
I’ve hacked around a googlemaps image to show where the various parts were in relation to today.

Thanks for the info Baz!

the pencil sketch IS priceless, but is it just me or does it not resemble something more like a Whitley/Stirling crossbreed?

Seems it is just you – its most definately a Stirling! 🙂

the pencil sketch IS priceless, but is it just me or does it not resemble something more like a Whitley/Stirling crossbreed? (perhaps there was an original photo of a Whitley flying in that position?)

Not sure in what way you think it resembles a Whitley – IMHO it looks like a pretty good representation of a Stirling see:

http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/bww2/stirling/stirling-2.gif

On Google earth you can clearly see the silver curved roof of the Flight Shed at Grovely Lane/Low Hill lane junct.
The airfield is adjacent to the flight shed (just to the north a few yards) you can see the rough outline of the airfield where the new post war factory was built

rgds baz

Hi James…I looked into this a few years ago…if you scroll down this page there is a (Luftwaffe) vertical photo of the airfield

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.austinmemories.com%2Fpage42%2Fpage42.html&ei=B9jfTM7POoSYhQeVg8TMDQ&usg=AFQjCNFvBfmadmAyWv7tljc2PzI31sI8VQ

Hi Mark, fascinating insight, where exactly was the airfield (in relation to today) and what was it named Longbridge airfield?

The pencil sketch IS priceless, but is it just me or does it not resemble something more like a Whitley/Stirling crossbreed? (perhaps there was an original photo of a Whitley flying in that position?)

A couple of photo’s

James, glad to help, its amazing what crops up on this forum

Spurred on by the footage I have found out my photographs of which there are two if interest to this thread. One is of the first Austin built hurricane AP516 taken on the airfield the second is an image of a painting which depicted the factory layout, sadly the original artwork is lost.
Both of these will be copyright of the British Motor Heritage Industry Trust (BMIHT) I suspect as this is where the Longrbidge / Austin photographic archive ended up as far as I can tell. Although these were sourced direct from the then Longbridge photographer, John Chasemore, when he had this collection in his care on the site. Many hours of valuable worktime was spent rumaging through the original glass plates and negatives he cared for, most of which he had saved from being skipped some years before 😮

Now, another question following on – the rushes are clearly intended for a newsreel or factual film: was it made, and if so, what was it?

This still I’ve taken shows the clapperboard, which for main details as far as I can read says:

“Merton Park Studios, Bramley, Production 1693/[?], Jimmy Rogers”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merton_Park_Studios

Dear Mark,

Thanks very much for a most comprehensive answer. Teriffic insight, much appreciated. Bet you never thought you’d be letting us know all that!

Cheers!

Austin Motors – Longbridge

I would recognize the inside of that roof anywhere. Its filmed inside what was known as the ‘Flight Shed’ at Austin Motors works at Longbridge Birmingham.
I worked inside this building for a while in the 1980’s when it was part of the powertrain development workshops at the then Austin Rover factory. The Flight shed and associated ‘east works’ made up the wartime shadow factory built here.

Austin built a number of Hurricane IIB’s here within serial range AP516 – AP936, which covered 300 aircraft, most went direct to Russia, they also built components for another 200 here. The first Hurricane was flown from the airfield here to Elmdon on 8th October 1940

Edit – all 4 reels are shot at the Austin factory, reels one & two are inside the main factory ‘East Works’ Reel 3 is the Flight shed and reel 4 shows the famous aircraft lift from the flight shed up to the airfield. In the background can be seen what was at the time Austin’s car factory. After the war the airfield was built over with what became the main Austin/ Austin Rover/ Rover Cars factory until closure a few years back. I spent many years walking over the top of that airfield, I have several still photographs collected from the period of wartime production but this is the first time I’ve seen any film from here.
Thanks for posting your question !