By Nick Pollard
Sunbury was once home to a variety of manufacturing businesses, most of which have disap-peared, along with the jobs they provided for the local population. One of these was known as the Turret Grinding Wheel works, which was located on a site off Fordbridge Road, where there is now a small industrial estate.
The American Samuel Briggs arrived in Sunbury in 1909 and set up a works in Highfield Road (off Halliford Road) to make abrasive grinding wheels, bringing the Denby-Hart patents with him. Grinding wheels are used in industry for abrasive cutting and machining of metals. They are composed of a coarse aggregate embedded in a cement, moulded into a disc shape, and baked to harden them. Briggs later took on British partners and the company became Mc Ewen, Denby & Hart-Briggs Ltd. By 1922 the Managing Director was H. Mc Ewen, and the other directors were J.N. Briggs (presumably the son of Samuel) and E.F. Denby. In common with many companies, besides the works in Sunbury they had a London office, in Queen Victoria Street, where the commercial side of the business was handled.
The company also produced complete machines such as saw-sharpeners. Incidentally, the name ‘Turret’ derives from a type of machine tool that has multiple cutting or grinding tools mounted on a rotating block, like a gun turret, which can be rotated to use the required tool without hav-ing to set the part up on the machine again.
As the works expanded, the main entrance was changed from Highfield Road to Fordbridge Road, possibly for better access as Highfield Road was unmade at the time. The factory was surrounded by the greenhouses and fields of Homewood’s nurseries.
The photo shows the works from the air, from the south, with the entrance from Highfield Road visible at top left. The building with the prominent chimneys at the front on the right was where the ovens were located which baked the completed grinding wheels. If you have any memories of working at ‘Turret’ do let us know.