IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Halesfield 22, TELFORD, TF7 4QX

One of the older industrial buildings on the Heslop/Halesfield estate. This one was formerly the materials testing laboratory of the Telford Development Corporation, which undertook quality assessments on the various building materials being supplied to, and used by, the firms building the Telford New Town in the late 1960s and early 1970s. My father ran the place through much of that period. It is now occupied by car repair workshops and other light industrial uses.

At the time of the photo, the site was operated by Lafarge Aggregates UK, but was subsequently divested in 2012 to Hope Construction Materials Ltd, a new business formed to buy a series of concrete plants and a cement operation from Lafarge UK and Tarmac Ltd in the latter part of 2012. It passed to Breedon Aggregates around 2015 and since then, it has been re-acquired by Tarmac and now (2019) operates as one of their two busy concrete plants in Telford. The other is at Image

A couple of factories off the main Halesfield-Stirchley road (Halesfield 1).

The subject of this photo lies slightly north of Image, and shows another part of the former Piper's Coppice area. This was once a working woodland to the east of Kemberton Colliery, which occupied the ground roughly where Image now stands. Fragments of the wood, and tghe adjoining Hem Coppice, remain in places nearby, but it's clearly a shadow of what is shown on the maps of the 1920s.

Fences on both sides; the businesses here apparently have a concern about security and intruders.

Built in the 1980s, or possibly a little later, this unit occupies land which was once wholly wooded by the southern end of Hem Coppice, or the northern end of Piper's Coppice, an ancient woodland that covered much of this area in the late 19th century. My recollection as a child in the 1970s is that it was also effectively common land, and sometimes grazed by pigs. Fragments of the woodlands remain, but much has been removed by development.

Now much reduced in size by the development of Halesfield industrial estate, Piper's Coppice was once a working woodland to the east of Kemberton Colliery, which occupied the ground roughly where Image now stands. Fragments of the wood remain in places nearby, but it's clearly a shadow of what is shown on the maps of the 1920s.