It seems ages since I last blogged but I see it was less than a week ago! A sign of the times I suppose. Canal wise I suppose the highlight has been going down to the marina to check the boat out after six months over a long winter. We had all sorts of visions of the boat having almost as much water inside as outside. I had thought that if the boat had sunk the marina would have let us know, so that wasn't a problem high on my worry list. It took just over two hours to drive there and on a nice sunny day, but with a biting wind, and regular snow flurries, we arrived to see 'Holderness' sitting looking as we had left her.
Once we got inside I was much relieved to see the repair I had done on the stove flue before we left had worked well and there was no ingress of water down the sides of the chimney. That was my biggest worry as if it had come down in torrents it would have rotted the cabin deck etc and could have needed very prolonged and expensive remedial work. Everything was fine and cosy inside, not musty smell no damp and no mould. The engine started first time, after 7 secs on the heating plugs and with no smoke when it fired up. The Hurricane heater started too. The radiators had lost no water so when bled passed no wind! The three-way valve operated correctly and the hot water and heating worked fine, independently and together. I opened the gas bottle and it was empty. I am now not sure if that bottle had run out just before we came home, or it had leaked out over winter, but when switched over to the spare bottle was fine. All in all it was very nice to see her in such good nick, and whetted our appetite for getting out and about on the cut soon.
The marina is at Kings Bromley and as an extra I had a look around for stories about Kings Bromley Wharf, or Bromley Hayes Wharf as it is sometime called.
The first mention I could find was that it was taking deliveries of Caldon Low Lime that had been produced at Brereton Lime Kilns. I assume that the wharf was built when the Grand Trunk canal opened in 1777. Another important commodity worked at the wharf was timber that had been felled in local woodlands, oak and ash trunks were auctioned and transported from the mooring. There was definitely a warehouse at the wharf that belonged to the canal company in 1827 as a robber had stolen 2 chests of tea, a small box of raisins and two other packages. Mr. Joseph Cresswell was the wharfinger.
On the site in 1867 was a wood turning business and sometime between 1882 and 1884 there was a milk and condensed milk factory on the site established by a Mr. Ralph Whittle. Ralph Whittle was a dairy man and milk contractor from Shardlow. with another he had a business converting milk into condensed milk and also make cocoa preparations. In 1883 they formed a limited company with capital of £60,000 and called the Condensed milk and Dairy Co. with Whittle as the General Manager. They had works at Shardlow, Swarkestone and Rugby. The old Company Osbourne and Whittle was styled the Trent Valley Dairies with works establishments in Rugeley and four in London as well as those in the new company. It was the Trent Valley Dairy Co. that was declared bankrupt and had the dairy at Kings Bromley Wharf. There was an auction, November 1884 of the equipment that was described as almost new and included separators, refrigerators, pumps, carts, presses etc as well as 34 railway churns and 4 cream churns. Ralph Whittle had been living at Riley Hill House, close to the wharf and the contents of this house were also up for auction. The Bankruptcy hearing was held in Walsall in January 1885 and Ralph Whittle did not show up. It was said that he had done a runner and was in America!
The warehouse at the wharf can bee seen in this 1881 OS map extract, along with a weighing machine to measure bulk loads.
It seems this opportunity was not to be missed as before the sale, a meeting was held at the Royal Oak in Kings Bromley the great and good of the farming and land owning folk turned up and the plan was set out to them. It was resolved to set up a dairy business with capital of £3000 in £600 £5 shares and to secure the tenancy of the dairy at Kings Bromley Wharf from the Railway/Canal Company or take up the offer of Col. Lane of premises at Armitage. A second meeting was held about two weeks later and they were then told that they had obtained the tenancy of the wharf dairy. The chair of the meeting, George Fox of Elmhurst gave many statistics as to show that selling milk rather than converting it to butter and cream would be more profitable for the farmer. In January 1885 the official prospectus was published. The company was to be called the Trent Valley Dairy and Produce Co. The idea is to save the farmer time and expense in converting their milk to butter and cream and from the difficulty of transporting milk a distance with the chance that it could sour, especially in summer. By selling to locally known people there was less chance of poor payments and bad debts.. It was talked of as Like a co-operative. The wharf creamery had been secured from the North Staffs. Railway Co for £26 a year rental. The products as well as raw milk will be sold locally as well as in London. They would look to deal in eggs and later, cattle, sheep and hens as was felt practical.This was at a time when there had been a depression in agriculture for several years.
After having a shop in Lichfield that sold their produce the Trent Valley Dairy decided to have their own outlet in the town.
The factory opened on 1st April 1885 and soon after visitors and press were invited to look around. The work had been completed with a call for only half the capital and the design had been carried out with the help of a Mr. Fawkes who was the agent for Lord Vernon and had set up a similar dairy at Sudbury. The steam engine drove all the machinery by belts etc ans the steam provide the heat sources, and gravity used as much as possible. The milk was cooled as soon as received and then could be sold whole or separated when the cream would be sent off to the cheese and butter room and the rest sent through a pasturiser and then cooled before storing. The factory is designed to use the milk of 500 cows or 1000 gals a day, and is all worked by 6 people including a girl and two boys. To make a profit dairy farming techniques and breeding programmes would have to improve and new markets would have to be sort, along with costs kept to a minimum. They had displays of butter and cheese at local shows, and sort out preferred sales outlets in various towns.
In the first year they did not make a profit but were satisfied that they were on the right track. The company took a lease an office and factory in Birmingham and they decided to increase the capital to £10,000. They made a profit in the second year despite bad debts and swine flu meaning they had to slaughter their pigs that lost them about £100. Products were sent daily to Huntley and Palmers of London. However things did not continue to go as hoped and by January 1892 the directors decided to reduce the capitilisation back to £3000 from £10,000. This was confirmed in April 1892 when it was seen that off the 1000 shares only 841 had been issued. By August the equipment at works in Birmingham, along with the lease, were up for auction, although it seemed as if it was being sold as a going concern. The sale in September raised £1000 as the company went into voluntary liquidation. They had made a loss of £282 in the previous financial year, and in the end their creditors only received 8/6d in the pound.
It seems the business was purchased by an A.F. Fox as he was requesting that all churns stamped with the company should be returned to the creamery. However in July 1892 an advert asking for a man to deliver milk to the station should apply to F.C. Edwards at the Trent Valley Dairy, months before the liquidation. It was F. C. Edwards of London, Wilmslow and Kings Bromley that advertised in the papers for farmers to bring their milk to the creamery under contract in 1893. The contract was for a year and payments to them would be every two weeks. It seems that he looked after his staff as there was an annual dinner dance at the creamery, however the main part of the food was provided by the suppliers of the milk! They must have been successful affairs as the dancing went on until 4 or 5 in the morning! The company also had a darker side as they were quick to take farmers to court who reneged on their contracts. In one case the farmer the farmer was accused of taking 10% of the fat before supplying the milk. The farmer was fined despite the fact that it wasn't proved it was his milk and that it had been a very dry season. It seems the contracts were quite restrictive in that the price paid to the farmer varied depending on the season. The farmer had to guarantee a certain amount of milk even when his cows were dry. This often meant that he would have to buy milk in to cover the contract. In 1897 the contract money was short of what the farmers wanted and they banded together to bargain with the Company. They demanded 5d a gallon for April milk, 41/2d for milk in May, June and July, 5d for April and September, 6d October and March and 71/2d for November, December January and February. The different rates were given due to the dryness of the season and the number of cattle supplying the milk at that time. as both affected production of the cows. In 1899 another was taken to court for not supplying milk and his last two week payment was stopped. There was a big drought at the time and his cows had dried off. He was being paid 4d a gallon and as he couldn't supply he would have teo purchase in milk at 1s a gallon. Another London Milk dealer stated he was having to pay 111/2d to get milk during the drought. Another farmer was sued due to 14% water added to his milk. He argued that his land was very poor at the time and he could not meet his contract quantity. All the farmers were fined. The Edward's Creamery seems to have been successful and at some stage was bought out by United Dairies. I think that the dairy at Kings Bromley Wharf was closed in the 1930's.
Advert from 1907
The staff at the Edwards Creamery in 1917
A poor photo showing the Edwards Creamery after WWI
In 1905 the Creamery was prosecuted for pollution of the canal and causing a nuisance by the smell from their works. It seems that whey and separated milk had been discharged into the canal by accident. After an investigation by the Council and the Company it was found that the drains were inadequate and the storage of waste was insufficient. It was recommend that new septic tanks should be built, but later this was changed to a system of separating and settling tanks or pits. In 1909, and again in 1913, the Kings Bromley Creamery won the contract to supply the Staffordshire Industrial schools. At least 50 gallons of cream were used by the travelling butter making competition that continued into WWI. The War affected the Dairy as men were hard to come by as well as horses for the wagons, and both were the subject of advertisements in the local papers. In 1916 Charles Foskett and his wife left the Dairy. He had been manager there for over twenty years. He had been born in Berkhampsted to a gardener father. By the time he was 11 they were living in Chiswick, with his father still a gardener. By the Time Charles was 22 he was a foreman dairyman in Chiswick. He moved to Satffordshire soon after Edwards bought the The Trent Valley Creamery and stayed there for over twenty years living mainly on site along with the resident engineer in another house. The company and fellow workers gave hive a silver tea service. It seems that by 1933 the business had become part of United Dairies but Mr. Edwards was on the Board of the new company as he was back in Kings Bromley awarding prizes at the United Dairies Social and Sports Club in 1933. I think the dairy at the wharf must have closed soon after as I find no more mention of it after this.
Extract of the 1921 OS Map which I think shows the separating and settling tanks required after the 1905 pollution of the canal.
The Kings Bromley Marine of today, with the wharf still there.
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