EPW032896 ENGLAND (1930). The Aeolian Pianola Piano Factory, Hayes, 1930

The Aeolian Company Ltd was the British subsidiary of the Aeolian, Weber Piano and Pianola Company of New York. The factory site at Hayes was purchased from a farmer, Ernest Shackell, in 1908, and the first buildings were erected the following year.



The four storey building behind the chimney, with the semi-circular (Diocletian) windows on the top floor, was the earliest section to be built, and by coincidence it is also, in 2013, the last to remain. The large building to the left of the chimney was erected after the First War, and was intended for the building of pianos. The building on the right of the chimney, with the Diocletian windows on the floor below the top, housed the Universal Music Company, a subsidiary that manufactured perforated music rolls for the Company's Pianolas and Pianola Pianos.



Also after the First War the Company produced Vocalion gramophone records. By 1930, when this photograph was taken, the cheaper label of Broadcast Records had taken over, as can be seen on the roof of the low building next to the railway, where the records were made. By 1930 the bottom had dropped out of the Pianola business, and the "For Sale" notice facing the passing trains was finally successful, and over the years Kraft Cheese and Walls Sausages and Meat Pies used the premises. Most of the old buildings were demolished in 1977, and in 2013 the area is mainly a modern industrial estate.



The original building from 1909 and 1912 was bought after the Second War by a property owner named Benny Lowenthal, and he renamed it the Benlow Works after himself. Thus it remains today, with a Grade 2 preservation order on it, not greatly used, but with some possibility of being redeveloped as an apartment block. On the sunny day when this photograph was taken, one can see that the factory clock was standing proudly at 1 pm, whereas for the last 70 years or so it has remained defiantly at half-past six!

Benlow Works, Silverdale Road, Hayes, 07/10/2014 from a train.