Feavers Tin Plate & Metal Box Works
Hi guys,
Hoping someone could tell me where exactly Feavers factory was. Before my aunt recently passed away, she said it was in Decima Street/Wilds Rents but during my searches the only reference I could find was an extract from a 1894 Post Office directory that mentioned Long Walk and/or 43 Bermondsey Square. This would have been before Tower Bridge Road was built right through Bermondsey Square and Long Walk.
Thanks for any information, a picture would be event better (no chance I think!)
[Map below is an extract of 1914 OS map, with pubs marked in yellow]
Feavers, eh!?
The pub coloured yellow which is west of Abbey Buildings was The White Bear which was in the L shaped street known as Long Walk (it wasn't very long at all!) . Walking west from The White Bear you come to the corner of Tower Bridge Road and would be standing next to Feaver's wall. Feavers is the large oddly shaped five sided building to the south of where you'd be standing. The metal bashers were at the back and upstairs. The front centre of the building had a door which led into the offices - almost exactly opposite where the "W" is in "TOWER BRIDGE ROAD".
Hope thsi helps.
Fantastic paperboy, thanks very much for that. With that information, I might even spot bits of the building in the background or on the edge of other photos. Incidentally 'Long Walk' was quite a bit longer before Abbey Buildings and Tower Bridge Road was built over it. Still as you said, it wasn't long even then!
Hi Freddie, I recollect that there was a tin-plate factory right on the corner of Decima St. and Wild Rents. It was on the left side of the street, coming from the Tower Bridge Road. I don't remember the name of it, but it may have been the factory you're asking about. However, looking at the old map, it doesn't look like a factory was there when it was published.
I lived in that area from 1945 until 1968.
Pat Long
Hi guys,
I've final come across a picture that (partially) shows the John Feaver factory in Tower Bridge Road. Many thanks for the help.
Freddie
PS. Taken over the "Cally" market, Bermondsey Square approx 1950 and looking east down Abbey Street. Feaver's is the large building on right of shot
I used to walk past the factory on the way home from nursery. The noise of the machinery (and the smell wafting out) in warm weather when all the windows were open, still bring back memories of TBR - even though the factory must have been demolished in the 70s. I'm sure there was a sweet shop on Tower Bridge Rd in the block bounded by Long Walk and Abbey St but from the picture it doesn't look like a building.
I knew Fevers very well as a boy, it was a place of great interest to us plenty of fun and danger. The fun part was collecting the cut out discs of tin which were always laying around , the danger part were scaling them at one another. These discs had been through a press and had very sharp edges on them and of course if you copped one in the face, as I did, you were in for a nasty cut, but that was all in the game.. My Uncle Jim Killick used to work there and I remember he used to go home very smelly and pretty deaf, no ear muffs in those "Good old days" Just up the road from Fevers towards Tower Bridge there a Church we used call "The Flea Church" as it had a flea like bug on the lightening rod on the steeple, I saw it the night it got bombed it burned like blazes and was still alight when we walked past after a night on the platform at London Bridge underground.. Good and bad memories...
Nice picture - Abbey Buildings in the back ground where I was born in 1956.
My father and uncle worked there. My uncle carried an unexploded bomb from the build. There were 2 gates to the building, one next door to the White Bear and the other in Grange Walk - opposite the old Gate house.
Always remember a set of bent cast railings on the ground floor of Feavers - on Tower Bridge Road side - where a car travelling at speed from Tower Bridge couldn't take the bend and smashed into Feavers.
Metal Box in Riley Road and Wyatts in Tanner Street were also Tin Box manufacturers.
It was Metal Box, I worked there as a printer for about 5 years in the early 80's before it closed down. They had the can making in Riley Road and the actual printing works in Wilds Rents. Loved my time there
Carnaud, was the factory on the corner of Wild Rents and Decima Street?
Yes the front entrance was in Wilds Rents and the side entrance was in Decima street. Lovely place to work and great people worked there
Yes it was called metal box i worked ther till igot maried in 1956 i loved working there the girls there gave me a great send off
