Art Deco offices, Bath Road, Melksham, Wiltshire

Image: © Alan Cooper Taken: 19 Jun 2011

Now owned by the US Cooper Tire Company, this building was until 1997 part of the Avon Rubber Company until the company decided to pull out of motor car tyre manufacturing due to the relentless pressures from the Far East market, particularly China. Avon moved to new factories in nearby Semington in 2000. As of October 2010, the Wiltshire Times reported that Cooper Tires had a workforce of 600, a number far reduced from Avon's 2,500 during the war. In 1885 Messrs E G Browne and J C Margetson founded Avon Rubber, moving to the Matravers cloth mill in Melksham and making an increasing range of rubber products as the site expanded to 28 acres. This Art Deco building is not the main administrative building but could be the attractive canteen that was opened for the employees in 1940 and which could accommodate 600 people at one sitting. Some source material at http://www.avon-protection.com/Corporate/Other%20Information/history-corporate.htm

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0