The Rogerstone Directory - History Articles
What do ‘The Brabazon’, the ‘QE2’, a Scorpion Tank, the 1953 Everest Expedition and ‘Hedgehog’ flavoured crisps have in common?
Post-War Industry in Rogerstone!
Under the Distribution of Industry Act 1945 several new industries were established at Rogerstone in the post-war years providing a variety of employment which did not exist previously. The industries took residence on the industrial estate established at the Wern and later still at Tregwillym Road Estate. These industries were mainly producers of raw materials rather than the finished products. They included:
Lyte Ladders Ltd, makers of aluminium ladders
Rogerstone Precision, makers of engineering tools.
Avana, producing cakes, puddings, etc.
Newport Clocks Ltd, clock manufacturers
Chapman & Dunn Ltd, flour manufacturers
AB Electronics, electronic equipment producers
Bensons, home of the notorious "hedgehog" flavoured crisps.
British Railways were still an important employer in the area, due to the extensive marshalling yards at Rogerstone.
Northern Aluminium Ltd, which had begun production in the area in 1939, continued to be the major employing industry in the area. No strangers to supplying materials for the air industry, Northern Aluminium, later renamed Alcan, was responsible for producing wing spans for the famous Spitfire aircrafts during the Second World War. In post war years their contribution to the air industry continued with the production of all of the sheet, most of the extrusions and the large wing span sections for the ‘De Havilland 106 Comet’. In 1949, they followed this with the production of almost all of the aluminium alloy used in the world’s biggest land plane of that time - the Brabazon 1 airliner.
In 1968, aluminium alloy made at the Rogerstone works was being used in the construction of the new Cunarder Queen Elizabeth 2. The liners funnel, which was just over 65 feet high, took 35 tons of the metal. Then, in 1969, development trials were ongoing for a new British tank, built with Welsh armour-plating, made of aluminium plate produced at the Rogerstone works of Alcan Industries Ltd. The new Scorpion tank was the first British fighting vehicle built almost entirely from aluminium
Alcan was not the only post-war industry in Rogerstone associated with well known names. 1949 saw the arrival of Lyte Ladders at the Wern Industrial Estate. Already a successful, thriving business, with a world-wide export business, one of their most notable orders was for sectional ladders for the successful Mount Everest Expedition of 1953. The organising secretary of the expedition, Major C. G. Wylie, was put in touch with the Monmouthshire firm in his search for a portable crossing to bridge a formidable chasm some 22,000 feet up Everest. The ladders, which had to be left on the mountain with certain other equipment, were later recovered by the Sherpas and put to good use by the monks of the Thyangboche Monastery in repairing the monastery thatched roof!
1973 saw the arrival of the first ‘Superstore’ to be built in South Wales, with the opening of an ASDA store at Ruskin Avenue. The site covered 6 acres and boasted free parking space for 850 cars, a petrol station and a tyre bay. The name Asda was relatively unknown at that time in South Wales, being a Yorkshire company, but claimed to be the fastest growing chain of superstores in the country, offering "shopping without frills". Their time at Ruskin Avenue was relatively short lived, closing in 1990 when the new superstore at the Duffryn site was opened. The Ruskin Avenue site was later cleared for housing development.
Light industry in Rogerstone continues to expand with additional industries at the Wern Industrial Estate and the Tregwillym Road Estate and more recently at Afon Village, the former site of the Rogerstone Power Station.
(Photographs taken from local newspaper cuttings) Kim Fry
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