A bit more info! Looks like Jaguar inherited the plant from British Leyland, as it was building Austins from the end of the War. Taken from the Jaguar Intranet.

The Spitfire at Castle Bromwich

(P7350) was the 14th one built at the Castle Bromwich factory, during July 1940, and still flies with the Royal Air Force ‘Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’. It saw combat service in the Battle of Britain, having served with No 266 Squadron at Hornchurch in 1940. It shot down 3 enemy aircraft and still bears the repairs made to bullet holes in the wings.

Prior to becoming a manufacturing site for aircraft, Castle Bromwich was used for treating sewage from the city of Birmingham. Indeed, Charlie Jones, who started work at the factory (then called the Nuffield Factory) in 1938 as a machine fitter recalls that his sister was the landlady at the Tyburn Public House which still overlooks the site today, and his father was a site supervisor who operated the steam driven chain drawn ploughs that turned the filter beds when the site was used to treat sewage.

1940 Completion of most of the buildings, infrastructure and Plant installation ready for full production of the Spitfire MK II. Castle Bromwich was equipped and managed by Morris Motors Limited with the original intention of building the aircraft using the same techniques of jigging all components so they could be built by unskilled labour as was the case in the Motor Industry. However, the Royal Air Force were making so many changes to the design that the intention to make the Spitfire using this technique was never fully realised. The factory was equipped with the most modern machinery available at that time, far superior to anything that the aircraft industry had, and was fully constructed and commissioned at a cost of £4,422,133 excluding the cost of preparation to the adjoining aerodrome land. Charlie remembers that at the time the site wasn’t complete with R block still to be constructed, and F Block still to have its floor laid. Charlie recalls how the blocks were used:

A Block – Used for the Final Assembly of the Lancaster Bomber – Fuselage, Cockpit, Tailfin assembly, plus spray painting, then rolled out via huge doors on the East end of the block for Run-up and Final Inspection. A1/A2 wasn’t built until after the war!

B Block – Used as the Receiving Bay for Sub-assemblies, Electric Looms, Pipe assemblies, Cockpits, Instrument Panel assemblies, and Spitfire and Lancaster sub-assembly build. It received components from 32 “dispersal” factories scatttered around the Midlands.

C Block – Spitfire Final Assembly took place in this block. On the North side was the Wing Assembly area and Spray Booth. The Leading Edge of the wing was constructed across the West end of the block, whilst in the centre was the Fuselage Assembly, Engine Mounting, and Tailfin fitting – together with wiring, pipe work, and wing fitting. On the South side of the block was the Engine fitting. Outside, on the East end of the block, the Final Inspection and Engine Testing was carried out.

D Block – This block was used mainly as a Machine Shop with steel stores at the West end, and a Tool Room at the East end. In the centre of the block was the production area for the Oleo legs used in the under-carriage of both the Spitfire and the Lancaster.

E Block – The East end of the block was the home for the anodising plant, then travelling eastwards you would see the sub-assembly stores, the sewing room (for parachute manufacture) and at the very East end of the block the Dope room.

F Block – At the West end of the block was another steel stores whilst at the East end was another Tool Room and Pattern Shop. The Tool Room was actually on the North side with the Pattern Shop on the South Side. In the middle on the North side was the Press section, and on the South side of the centre were 24 “wheeling” machines that produced the “Hockey Sticks” used to seal the wings to the fuselage. These machines had to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

H Block – This was the Number 2 Boiler house and the site of this building is now part of Heartlands Ford.

I Block – This area was used for the manufacture of Fuel Tanks.

J & V Blocks – Here was the base for the Maintenance Departments, Millwrights, Welders, Blacksmiths, Electricians, Painters, Carpenters, Bricklayers, and Roofers.

L Block – This was another Receiving bay.

R Block – The canteen was based in this building which also doubled as a venue for shows and entertainment.

O Block – The site Hospital was located here with the Mortuary beneath it. A Laboratory was on the East end.

W Block – The site of the plant Fire station.

Z Block – This housed the Engineers stores and the Bore Well water system which was a 360 ft well with a tower to accomodate a water supply holding tank. The tower also played home to the Ack-Ack battery to help ward off attacks be enemy aircraft. Next door was the site of the Number 1 Boiler House.

M Block – The site garage was based in this building.

P & Q Blocks – The administration of wages, and personnel took place here, and it also served as the home for the management offices. The site of Q block is now occupied by Heartlands Ford.

T2, C1 and E1 were not built at this time although T block was constructed as a Deep Air raid shelter. It was never used as such for the design was found to be faulty when a similar one was destroyed elsewhere. A further one was started but never completed (T1) and the remains of this excavation were unearthed during the preparation of the site for the S-Type in 1998. The T2 shelter was never started.

Key Dates

1940 (May) With the production problems mentioned earlier, the factory had produced lots of parts but no complete Spitfires. Relations between the Air Ministry and Vickers Armstrong Aircraft Company on the one hand and Morris Motors on the other began to get strained. On May 17th Lord Beaverbrook, who had been Minister of Aircraft production for 3 days, telephoned Lord Nuffield, the Chairman of Morris Motors, to demand an explanation as to why no Spitfires had been produced. Lord Nuffield was very defensive but finished by sarcastically suggesting to Lord Beaverbrook that he might like to take control of the Spitfire factory. Lord Beaverbrook replied immediately that he thought it a very generous offer and accepted on the spot. Before Nuffield could respond the phone went click as Beaverbrook hung up. Nuffield’s ‘resignation’ allowed Beaverbrook to bring in Managers and skilled labour from the Supermarine factory in Southampton which was owned by Vickers Armstrong.

1940 (June) The Plant was tasked with producing 10 complete Spitfires by the end of June, and by shipping some of the major parts in from Southampton, the task was achieved. In the final analysis, the jigs which Nuffield had intended to use for unskilled assembly were used for the operations which were semi-skilled and the skilled labour at the site made the components which could not be made in that way.

1940 June With this mixture of assembly techniques, the Plant got started and 23 aircraft were produced in July, 37 in August and 56 in September. These Spitfires saw action in the closing stages of the Battle of Britain. It is of interest to note that the total cost of a new Spitfire was approximately £5,700.In total, Castle Bromwich was responsible for manufacturing just under 12,000 Spitfires and 50 Seafires between 1940 and 1945 at a peak rate of 320 per month which was the biggest output of any allied factory. In fact one of the Spitfires used by the Royal Air Force – Battle of Britain flight (Registration Number P7350) was constructed at the Castle Bromwich.

The Lancaster at Castle Bromwich

The first Lancaster built at Castle Bromwich Flown by Chief Test pilot, Alex Henshaw on 22nd October 1943. Its was given the airframe number HK535 and was fitted with Merlin 22 engines. Issued to the Royal Australian Air Force, Squadron 463, it was lost on a raid over Lille during the night of 10/11th May 1944.

1943 The first production Lancaster was flown from Castle Bromwich on 22nd October. This was the first one from an order for 200.

1944 Production of Lancasters reached a peak of 25 in December. This was a record for the quantity produced anywhere.

Castle Bromwich (or C/B as it’s known to us at Jaguar) was a purpose built aircraft factory and was taken over by Jaguar at a later date – I can find out out when tomorrow.

It is a huge site with loads of unused space, very near to the Spitfire sculpture. Try contacting Jaguar directly to see if you can have a tour of the site – last I heard all tours were off due to the current financial worries but that may have changes.

Rumour has it that there is a Spitfire wing in the roof somewhere, either just left there or forming part of a repair.

I shall be spending a bit of time there soon as the XK replacement is going to be built at C/B…

JC

Anyway some of the statics I’ve seen may not take the pounding of 8 .303 Brownings.

Good point – anyone remember that documentry about recovering the P38 for the ice? And what happened when they test fired ONE of the guns? Spectacular!

JC

It’s marked R.H. so I would assume it’s one of a pair. Flap drive motor? Undercarriage bay door drive motor?

JC

I think one of them is doing a poppy/rose petal drop over Coventry this morning (assume RA?).

Got any ETD’s Tom?

JC

Thought it was Moggy and his 3D rendering at work again!

A film “extra”? Something from Piece of Cake or the like? Taxiable?

Without wishing to appear (even more) stupid, are the 4 blade prop and 4 gun wings compatible? Thought everything from the Mk V was based around the cannon wing.

JC