W. Coates and Sons, Montpelier Street

Image: © Alan Murray-Rust Taken: 21 Jun 2012

The current home of the successors to what was a significant firm of rope manufacturers for industrial and other purposes. The following is a resume of an article in the Lenton Times (journal of the Lenton Local History Society) for October 2003: "William Coates set up in business as a ropemaker in 1840 and established a number of ropemaking operations in the Nottingham area. Following his father's death in 1894, Herbert Coates took over the business and decided that he needed to incorporate the latest technology if he were to keep ahead of his competitors. So in 1903 he bought an industrial property in Spring Close which had additional land attached to it. Here he had a huge indoor ropewalk built and installed the most up-to-date steam-driven machinery. For reasons which are explored in the article the company was eventually forced into liquidation in the mid-1930's. Their city centre premises were closed down, the work force laid off, the Lenton premises put up for sale and most of the machinery either auctioned off or sold for scrap. In due course most of the premises were acquired by W.J. Simms, Sons & Cooke Ltd. When Herbert Coates died in 1949 W.J. Coates & Sons found themselves with little option but to sell their remaining Spring Close properties to Simms, Sons & Cooke and move elsewhere. The article concludes by bringing the story up to date and recounts how Stewart Coates, great grandson of the original founder, continues to operate the business from 10 Montpelier Road." Old OS maps show a rope and twine factory behind houses on the opposite side of Montpelier Road to the current business which appears to date from around the period when the spring Close property was sold, as outlined in the article, but it's not clear whether this was part of the business. (Spring Close was in the area now occupied by the Queens Medical Centre.)

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