Lighting Campfield

At the end of last week's blog I briefly described how a former resident was trying to locate work places at which he had been employed in the 1960s.  The clues given to me were, a firm making 'up-and-over' garage doors, and a company manufacturing immersion heaters for copper heating cylinders.

One firm I had not considered for garage doors, but which the man in question recalled, was the Sphere Works in Campfield Road.  Although the company no longer exists several firms occupy the site which is now known as the Sphere Industrial Estate.

The question now is, do you remember Sphere Works manufacturing metal up-and-over garage doors? If you were employed at the Sphere in the 1960s or 1970s perhaps you could email the author ( saoee@me.com ) with some details.

While doing some computer searches for Sphere Works I came across the site www.simonsornwell.com    Simon is a collector of street lamps and has provided details of many of the country's manufacturers, including ELECO.  This firm was part of Sphere Works and also had premises in Campfield Road.  ELECO sold most, if not all, of the lamps and posts for St Albans before WW2.  It is always intriguing how firms become successful, get taken over, change their names and their locations.

ELECO, which began in the 1880s, was taken over by Davis Engineering Ltd in the 1980s, but that firm does not appear to be active today, unless there has been another change of name.  But one model the company made was a Windsor.  Is there a connection here with another street lighting firm, called   D W Windsor, which began in 1976?  Did it later take over the Davis Company?

If so, the continuity of ELECO remains in the county, for D W Windsor is at Hoddesdon.  If not, well ...   Any information would be welcome.

Turning to the SAOEE website, the two pages which describe the collection of One Hundred Objects has been static for some considerable time, and before the second book was published it was felt prudent not to display all of the objects in the collection.  A new set of pages is now gradually appearing, displaying and describing all of the objects.  You can now have a peep at the new layout through a link on the Welcome page.  The remaining four pages will gradually appear during the next month or two.